56 DEVELOPMENT
INCLUSIVE ENERGY COLLABORATIOAN: DELIVERING ON THE G20 ENERGY PRINCIPLES
Akinwumi A. Adesina President of the African Development Bank’ s speech at the G20 Energy Ministers Meeting on“ Inclusive Energy Collaboration: Delivering on the G20 Energy Principles October 2, 2015 Istanbul, Turkey
Your Excellency, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey. Honourable Ministers, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. Good morning!
I want to thank President Erdogan for his strong commitment in addressing the major development challenges facing Africa today. Since becoming Prime Minister in 2003 and now under his Presidency, Turkey’ s foreign direct investment in Africa has increased by more than 20 times. Turkey has opened new embassies in African countries, deepening its footprint on the continent. Turkish bilateral trade with Africa is up tenfold since the turn of the century.
Turkey’ s Presidency of the G20 provides another unique opportunity to support the actualization of sustainable and inclusive development for Africa. I want to thank Turkey for its vision and leadership in having chosen energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa as a focus theme for the G20. The G20 Action Plan will further boost efforts to ensure affordable, reliable, and sustainable access to power in Africa.
I arrived here yesterday evening from the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, where the global community approved the Sustainable Development Goals. It is the dawn of a new era for the world: one where, more than ever before, we must reach out across the global commons to solve problems and unlock opportunities. Our world will be a better place, if we achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. And nowhere is the urgency of the need to achieve the goals more than in Africa. Africa cannot sustain poverty. The over 400 million Africans living in poverty must see a new dawn of change. They must be lifted out of poverty.
The African Development Bank is ready, willing, and eager to serve as the institution of choice for helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. The African Development Bank will provide support to African countries to reach or even exceed the targets set out in the SDGs. We will mobilize the financing and the knowledge resources to turn the SDGs from vision to reality.
While each of the 17 goals is important for improving the lives of people around the world,
none is more important for Africa than SDG 7: Energy. Today, over 600 million Africans do not have access to electricity. Energy is the engine that powers economies. Without it, Africa cannot industrialize. Our factories lie idle for lack of power. The private sector is crippled, without the ability to operate effectively or competitively. Production remains stunted.
Without power, the problem of massive unemployment in Africa will not be solved. Africa’ s youth should not be migrating, at great risks, to Europe. But without power, we cannot create jobs and opportunities for them at home.
Africa today has 11 terawatts potential of solar energy. It has 320 gigawatts potential of hydro energy. It has 110 gigawatts potential of wind energy. And it has 15 gigawatts potential of geothermal energy. Africa cannot stand by with such massive energy resources and yet be known for the darkness, not the brightness, of its cities and rural areas.
The continent may be blessed with almost limitless potential for solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal energy 4 resources, but potential does not power our small businesses and our industries. Potential does not light our schools and homes. Potential cannot save the 600,000 people – mainly women and children – who die every year from pollution because they don’ t have access to clean cooking energy.
We must unlock Africa’ s energy potential – both conventional and renewable. Our bright sunshine should not only nourish our crops, it must power our homes. Our vast water resources should do more than provide us much needed drinking water: they must power our industries.
This is why the African Development Bank led the development and financing of the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, the largest wind farm in Sub-Saharan Africa that will provide 300 megawatts of clean power to Kenya’ s national electricity grid. This is an excellent example of how we can unlock the renewable energy potential in Africa. We need more projects like this, and the African Development Bank is uniquely positioned to identify, package and finance them.
There is no doubt that Africa has an opportunity to lead a renewable energy revolution by effectively harnessing the resources at our fingertips. But as we work towards this revolution, we must also be practical, responsibly harnessing conventional energy resources like natural gas and coal to meet the vast energy needs of our continent. It is critical that we reach the right energy mix for Africa, so that we can fuel industrialization that is so desperately needed.
We must take bold steps, think differently and act with a greater sense of urgency. In majority of African countries, over 90 % of the primary schools do not have electricity. I read recently of the determination of young primary school kids in the town of Bo, in Sierra Leone, who queue up for hours, around one lightbulb of a generous neighbour, to do their homework throughout the night. In other countries, the streetlights have become the congregation point of children, not to play, but to learn.
Yet in the USA, young African kids such as Saheela Ibraheem got admitted to Harvard University at the age of 15, entering the list of the“ World’ s Smartest Teenagers”. Young high school student Kwasi Enin, the son of a Ghanaian immigrant to the US, set a record for being granted admission to all the eight Ivy League universities in the US. Thedifference between them and those kids in the town of Bo, is all about opportunities to learn.
We must make access to electricity a democratic human right. We must rise up and do all it takes to ensure that all primary and secondary schools in Africa have access to electricity. The African Development Bank stands ready to work with the G20 and other partners to make this happen, to unlock learning opportunities, raise achievement in schools, reduce school dropout rates and securing a brighter future for Africa