ALER participated in strategic meeting on sustainable energy organised by the Africa-Europe Foundation

April 5th - ALER joined the Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF), to discuss the state of Africa-Europe energy cooperation, one year after the 6th EU-AU Summit and following the global energy ramifications caused by the Russian war in Ukraine.

The Strategy Group on Sustainable Energy, led by the AEF, aims to provide a safe space to reflect on the state of the sector from an African and European perspective, listen to priorities and identify opportunities for joint cooperation, as well as to outline areas for enhanced action given the geopolitical context.

The Group called for the Africa-Europe energy cooperation to harness the potential of transcontinental collaboration, at various levels, to accelerate both energy access and industrialisation in Africa whilst contributing to energy security and rapid decarbonisation in Europe.

Such energy transformations need to move forward in parallel and in an interconnected manner to provide human development and new economic opportunities for the two continents, reinforcing common opportunities for energy security, sovereignty and strategic autonomy.

Challenges

In relation to renewable energy, the meeting concluded that the main challenges to increased energy access and renewables penetration include:

Difficulties in accessing affordable finance;
Access to local capital in local currency;
National electricity tariffs that do not reflect real prices;
Lack of information on the contribution of renewable energy to economic opportunity and human development;
Lack of coordination platforms between Europe and Africa for enhanced energy cooperation
Insufficient interest in industrialisation of Africa from the EU side.

Recommendations

To address the demanding challenges, the strategy group has defined a set of recommendations, including:

The Africa-Europe Partnership must demonstrate that its cooperation on energy is fair and equitable and that it can contribute to transforming the overall energy system and energy access in Africa in a way that does not solely benefit Europe's decarbonisation and its race to climate neutrality.

The Africa-Europe Partnership must also demonstrate its adaptability to the evolving business case for renewable energy in the current context, understanding Africa's needs for industrialisation. The Partnership should seek to demonstrate, with the right evidence available, that the "renewable energy case" is the right energy path to follow, in terms of price, implementation, human and industrialisation needs.

All the conclusions and recommendations that emerged from this strategic meeting, are available for consultation here.