26 October, 2015
The campaign, which was formally started last week, aims to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of universal energy access by 2030 by focusing its efforts on Africa’s energy supply.
The Department for International Development has launched the UK’s Energy Africa campaign.
The campaign, which was formally started last week, aims to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of universal energy access by 2030 by focusing its efforts on Africa’s energy supply.
Two out of three people living in Africa, around 600 million, don’t have electricity in their homes and it is estimated that power outages cost countries in sub-Saharan Africa 1-2% of their GDP annually.
Energy Africa will take on the inefficient markets, policy barriers and under-investment which mean that Africans pay as much as 66 times more for their electricity than someone in the UK. It will do this by:
- boosting the market – the heart of the Energy Africa campaign is about removing policy and regulatory barriers to market expansion, and better co-ordinating donor support to the sector as a whole
- agreeing partnerships with key African nations – 14 target countries have been identified for agreements that will set out policy actions, particular to each country, to improve market conditions alongside the co-ordinated support needed to deliver on these, and
- increasing support to the sector – a series of DFID programmes have helped the household solar market get to where it is today, including the Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies (REACT) window of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund. Further financial support to the sector will build on this.
A reliable electricity supply is recognised one of the most powerful tools for lifting people out of poverty and ending dependency on aid. A report by USAID and DFID found that electricity was the most binding constraint to economic growth in Bangladesh.
For more information see the DFID website, the DFID press release or the Energy Africa video.