Mainstream thinking about ‘development’ commonly presumes all societies of the world are moving along the same track, with some countries in the lead and many others — particularly African countries — lagging behind with the hope and ambition of eventually ‘catching up’.
Mainstream notions of development based on modernisation often see development as a linear process, in contrast to the cyclical worldviews that have informed human history and most traditional and indigenous cultures. In reality, conventional development approaches have often led to maldevelopment, with increasing alienation and wasteful excess among the rich, and ever-increasing inequality both between and within countries.
Development is often characterised as a spontaneous, unavoidable or irreversible force, driven to a considerable extent by science and technology, and primarily led by either markets or governments (depending on political orientation) rather than through the forces of the ‘third system’ of civil society, social movements, engaged citizens, and the public.
Many of these ‘modernisation ideas’, when viewed from the perspective of those oppressed and colonised, can also be seen as European philosophical rationalisation of conquest, enslavement, displacement, and genocide of non-white societies.
A spotlight on Energy
In terms of energy use, the per capita electricity consumption in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, amounts to 180 kWh per person, compared with those in rich advanced economies of 6500 kWh/person in Europe and 13,000 kWh/person in the US. Hardly anywhere are global inequalities more apparent than in terms of energy use. These gross inequalities in energy use also translate directly into corresponding injustices in relation to emissions, with the world’s 10% wealthiest people responsible for more than 50% of the world’s emissions, and the 50% poorest — many of them Africans — emitting less than 7%. The typical billionaire is responsible for a million times more greenhouse gas emissions than the average person.
For those with little consumption, every additional kWh represents an increase in quality of life, while for high consumers of energy, there is hardly any such correlation. Beyond a certain level of per capita energy consumption, there is even zero or negative correlation with quality of life. For example, the average US citizen consumes almost double the amount of energy than the average German, but scores lower on the Human Development Index.
Globally, there needs to be a convergence of energy use levels towards a zone of ’genuine development.’ Poor people need to see a significant increase in their energy access and use, while those in the wealthy, high-consuming part of the population need to decrease their energy use.
Designing appropriate energy systems
The need for a new model of energy provision for African societies is long overdue. For far too long, energy planners in Africa have been locked into a model that only considers centralised systems as the norm in the design of electricity systems. The coming of age of renewables, in terms of technological maturity and increasingly favourable costs, together with the modular nature of solar systems, have opened opportunities to consider a broad spectrum of delivery models. Integrated energy solutions that bring together the advantages of both centralised and decentralised approaches are sensible ways to address the range of energy requirements across African societies. This implies that new institutions and new thinking are needed. This also implies a need to direct efforts and plans that facilitate and enable local and diverse ownership, broad-based involvement of both public and private African entities, and strategies and policies that purposefully set the basis for African manufacturing of renewable energy equipment as a key feature of industrial policy.
However, hurdles remain for African countries in accessing affordable finance as current finance instruments are designed primarily to attract private sector investors who perceive African countries as high-risk investment destinations. This plays to the disadvantage of Africa as countries will need to face the burden of entering into de-risking partnerships and market-correcting arrangements to create investable assets, exposing countries to contend with a range of hazards from liquidity to political and exchange rate risks.
Moreover, additional burden is placed on off-grid and smaller scale solutions, which tend to be more costly due to the fact that almost all forms of renewable energy technologies entail relatively high upfront costs for buying and installing equipment.
Key principles and approaches for the energy transition
As Africa moves forward in building its energy future, it is essential that energy efforts are informed by a number of key principles and approaches.
African ownership
Ensuring African agency. Currently numerous energy systems and ‘just transition’ initiatives are being launched that relate to Africa. Few of these fully emanate from Africa, and fewer yet are informed by the broader, integrated development perspectives and visions outlined here. Well-intended efforts also often get distorted and controlled by powerful and vested interests. Africa needs to find its own voice whereby the questions it asks about its energy and development challenges (and the solutions to these questions) are internally generated, debated, and acted upon.
Energy systems design
For many African countries, with the bulk of energy infrastructure yet to be built, the task is rather to leapfrog directly to the energy system of the future, similar to how African countries have bypassed outmoded wired telephone lines to build mobile systems. Regardless of their starting point, societies need to undertake the energy system transformation with the agility to continuously adjust course of action as needs and social and technological realities change.
Mapping and long-term plans and trajectories. It is critical for African countries to undertake their own, solid analyses of long-term energy planning options in ways that question and challenge business-as-usual and old assumptions. Such scenario building and planning need to include pathways towards 100% renewable energy, and draw on best available knowledge, particularly by African experts from across government, civil society, academia, and the private sector. Few such scenarios have been developed for African countries and even fewer with inputs from a broad representation of actors. These long-term plans will need to go beyond showing feasibility and overall cost savings, and incorporate social wellbeing and ecological constraints at the core of the assumptions. They also need to be produced through deep and deliberative processes to ensure meaningful, integrated energy systems planning and research.
Envisioning people-centred energy systems. As outlined, the new and future energy systems in Africa offer possibilities that go beyond a simple replacement of fossil fuels with renewables. The articulation of such energy models would need to be built on, for example, cooperative measures around common standards as well as sharing of experiences and innovative ideas that include grid design, smart, demand-side management, and new ownership models. The purpose of this effort is so that in the future, African energy systems, along with their utilities, can benefit from broad participation of diverse players that include both producers and consumers. While such a process has the potential to create democratically determined green structural transitions, the technical benefits include the flow of energy in multiple directions at different scales with batteries and other forms of storage effectively addressing peak demand and intermittence.
Energy sovereignty as a development strategy. Avoidance of costly fossil fuels can constitute an effective measure to break out of current patterns of perpetual economic entrapment and indebtedness. It is imperative, therefore, that energy sovereignty constitute a key objective in African energy planning. Even countries that produce and export fossil fuels such as Nigeria, Angola, and Sudan tend to import back more costly, refined fossil fuel-based products. The imperative of African energy sovereignty also applies to renewables. Countries will need to move away from getting stuck as providers of raw minerals for the global green transition in order to become serious players across the renewable energy value chain. Manufacturing of renewable energy technologies can be a key driver for African industrialisation and constitute an effective pathway towards energy sovereignty.
By swiftly moving toward socially acceptable and environmentally appropriate processing of minerals and production of renewable energy technologies, African countries can cut the need for foreign currency, and simultaneously stimulate domestic economies, employment, and expansion of the internal taxation base. Effective renewable technology manufacturing necessitates comprehensive, long-term approaches that include efforts to build capacity both in terms of African innovation and technology development capacity, and general skills among the workforces. It also necessitates demands for access to technology, and where necessary, overturning current restrictions by patents and other intellectual property rights restraints. Much of this also requires individual countries to join forces to collectively demand technology access and to set up internal, pan-African or regional markets and industrial policies to create economies of scale.
Excerpt of: Just Transition: A Climate, Energy and Development Vision for Africa (Just Transition 2023)
Source: Just Transition Africa