Abstract: Africa’s development aspirations are contingent on making this transition possible. Modern, secure, and affordable energy is a crucial input for mitigating poverty, ensuring prosperous rural livelihoods, building vibrant industries to diversify national economies, and connecting the continent through trade and cooperation. Primarily, Africa has abundant renewable energy sources with potential to cater to all energy service’s needs, while facilitating the rapid energy transition to renewables and as such limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
There are of course many challenges to overcome in achieving the energy transition for Africa. These include affordable access to modern energy services, phase out the use for cooking of traditional biomass energy sources; heavy reliance on fossil fuels; poor infrastructure and low rates of electrification; major technical and institutional capacity constraints; inadequate systems and infrastructure for regional energy cooperation; rapid population growth and urbanization; and weaknesses in energy governance. Successful energy transitions will depend on African leadership and ownership of the process. This will mean fully mobilizing Africa’s own energy resources and potentials, bringing energy to the top of national and regional agendas.
About the speaker: Prof. Sokona, with over 40 years of experience addressing energy, environment and sustainable development in Africa, has been at the heart of numerous national and continental initiatives. He was a Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report after serving as Co- Chair of IPCC Working Group III for the fifth assessment report following being a Lead Author since 1990. He has a track record of organisational leadership and management, for example as Inaugural Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre and as Executive Secretary of the Sahara and the Sahel Observatory. He is affiliated with numerous boards and organisations. For example, among others he is Honorary Professor at University College London, member of The World Academy of Sciences, the African Academy of Sciences, the International Council of Science, Associate member of the National Academy of Sciences and Technology of Senegal and Honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of Mali. Prof. Sokona is a global figure, with deep technical knowledge, extensive policy experience and an unreserved personal commitment to African led development.