World Economic Forum - Regions

World Economic Forum - Regions: "Access to Energy: Empowering Africa’s Development

• Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili • António Fernando • Christoph W. Frei • Rory Stear
Moderated by • William Asiko

Friday 12 June
09.00-10.00

Until recently, access to energy has been largely ignored as part of social investment in Africa, said Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, Vice-President, Africa Region, World Bank, Washington DC. However, this “missing link” is essential of other social investments such as in education or health to achieve their full potential in a continent where only 6% of rural people have access to electricity and where energy poverty or outages cost the African continent 2% of its GDP.

While institutions such as the World Bank place great emphasis on infrastructure, Ezekwisili said that in reality innovative solutions such as those initiated by Energy Poverty Action (EPA) are also crucial. Composite approaches are needed. There can be no single solutions to rural electrification  technological, financial or governmental.

António Fernando, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Mozambique, echoed these proposals, pointing out some of the basic ways that rural electrification has helped improve health and education delivery in Mozambique. People can now easily boil water"