Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation Jan -Feb 2014 Vol.10 No1 | Page 37

Energy

Power Africa tiptoes around Inga 3 dam
By Michael Igoe

How do you support
a massive energy
development project
without “officially”
supporting it? In
Africa, the U.S.
government may have
found a way.

Construction of the
Inga 3 dam in the
Andrew Herscowitz, coordinator of Power
Democratic Republic
Africa. U.S. President Barack Obama’s
energy initiative will not “officially” endorse of the Congo, while
the controversial Inga 3 dam project in the controversial, could,
Democratic Republic of Congo. by some experts’
estimation, achieve
U.S. President Barack Obama’s ambitious goal for Power
Africa in one fell swoop and provide 40,000 megawatts of
energy to a power-starved continent. A chorus of African
developers want Inga 3 to happen, but the dam is riddled
with risk and could “tarnish” the U.S. initiative’s brand.
So Power Africa will not “officially” endorse the massive
and controversial dam project, but instead support a
process by which African leaders will prioritize and “rally
around” their top regional power priorities, likely including
the megadam project on the Congo river.

Governance challenges and regional conflict further
complicate the project — and bestow increased risk on
any potential supporters or investors.
“We don’t want the Power Africa brand to be tarnished
by one major project that’s going to fail,” Herscowitz said
during the Summit, in reference to Inga 3 and other highrisk projects investors might be considering. Herscowitz
noted that Power Africa is playing a “supporting role” as
African leaders identify their own high-priority projects.
That the topic of Inga 3 came up in the first panel
discussion of the summit’s first day is hardly surprising.
The long-imagined Grand Inga dam complex, of which
Inga 3 would be a part, has been held up as the silver
bullet to defeat energy poverty on a continent where 622
million people lack access to electricity.
The discussion of Inga came on the heels of a
conversation about Power Africa’s measurable
accomplishments to date. Some observers have
questioned whether the initiative has contributed
significantly to Africa’s energy production, or whether
it is simply “repackaging” power deals that would have
proceeded anyway and stamping them with the Power
Africa brand. Herscowitz called some of the assertions
in a recent Reuters article, criticizing the initiative’s slow
start and general lack of demonstrable success, “not true
at all.”

Power Africa Coordinator Andrew Herscowitz — “at the
risk of … making an announcement” that was not really
his to make — told attendees at recent Powering Africa
Summit in Washington that African delegates currently
assembled across the Atlantic for the African Union
Summit in Addis Ababa are likely to announce soon a
few priority energy projects for the continent’s leaders
to focus on, as part of an ongoing strategic Program for
Infrastructure Development in Africa.

Paul Hinks, CEO of Symbion Power, a major Power
Africa partner, similarly defended the initiative against its
detractors.

Herscowitz offered the information in response to an
audience member’s question about why Power Africa
has not gotten involved in In