With an Energy Bank, Africa Eyes New Sovereignty

A new development model storms onto the world stage

By 2050, Africa’s economy will increase tenfold, from $3.1 trillion today to almost $30 trillion. This means that by the middle of the century, if taken as a whole, Africa will be the fourth-largest economy in the world.

By the same time, almost 800 million people in Africa will join the global workforce, as Africa’s population jumps from 1.3 billion today to almost 2.5 billion, meaning Africans will represent 25% of the world’s population.

With this extraordinary growth comes bigger and bigger pressures on African nations to deliver infrastructure, services, and overall connectivity that a larger (and richer) population across the continent will demand.

A big part of this is energy.

Except, when it comes to transforming the energy landscape, Africa faces hurdles, which are all interlinked.

At the top of the list is financing. In 2022, Africa invested around $70 billion in energy. In the same year, China invested over $546 billion just in clean energy, four times the US ($141 billion) and three times Europe ($180 billion).

From a global standpoint, Africa only attracts 3% of energy investments.