Africa Leading in Renewable Energy Investment
A wind farm in the mountainous outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. (Wikimedia Commons)
The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced the approval of $340 million on April 27 for water and renewable energy infrastructure in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Malawi, and Comoros. The grants will mainly target electricity interconnection between Guinea and Mali as well as off-grid solar electrification in Chad and Comoros.
Despite the monolithic story of poverty and underdevelopment propagated by both journalists and social scientists alike, Sub-Saharan Africa is leading the charge in renewable energy, defying the stereotype that environmentalism is a rich man’s game. For decades, development theories of international relations posited that industrialization was a necessary part of building state capacity along with the economic repercussions that came with it. Only after generating wealth could countries begin to focus on other issues most notably the environment. Increasing levels of green investment in Africa is challenging this notion.
The EIB’s new wave of funding is a mere fraction of the nearly $6.4 billion it has allocated across Africa in the last decade to adress clean power generation, energy distribution, and off-grid renewable energy. From March 24 to April 19, the EIB, in tandem with the East African Community (EAC) and the Portguese Embassy to Kenya, convened to discuss green energy prospects in the region and the necessity of European-African partnerships. According to incoming Secretary General of the EAC Dr. Peter Mathuki, “Recent innovative investment across East Africa has transformed access for millions of people to clean water, renewable energy and finance essential for a better and more sustainable future.”
In Africa, the negative effects of climate change do not stop at the degradation of the environment. In fact, in countries like Mali, climate change is a driving force behind conflict. Mali faces an ever expanding Sahara desert to the north and continuously overflowing river banks in the center and south. Increasingly unpredictable weather has upended the lives of millions of Malian citizens. With few alternatives, recruitment for terrorist organizations has risen consistently as rainfall totals decrease. This, in part, explains why two coup d'etats have occurred in the country in the last eight years alone. However, from initiatives as small as fishing communities in the Inner Niger Delta creating floating rice paddies to as large as a $300 million investment project that provides electricity for millions of Malian people, there is potential that climate policy could produce much needed stability within the country.
Mamadi Camara, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Guinea, underscored the importance of the Linsan-Fomi interconnector in his own country. He sees it as an integral part of the country's long term goal to improve access to energy for rural households and to bring the electrification rate to more than 80 percent by 2025.
Despite being home to some of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, Sub-Saharan African has been able to pair economic development with renewable energy investment. The EIB’s investment, with the help of the African Development Bank and Economic Community of West African States, has helped to catapult the continent to third in the world in terms of percent of renewable electricity output, ahead of North America by nearly 10 percent. Regardless of previously held notions on environmentalism and development, African countries are quickly adapting to a society where climate action is a necessity for survival.