Africafé: Fostering Effective Energy Transition in the Atlantic Region

Interviewée par Helmut Sorge, chroniqueur au PCNS, Rim Berahab, économiste spécialiste de l’énergie décortique dans son papier, les liens existant entre les énergies renouvelables en Afrique et les opportunités de croissance économique. “ Le modèle marocain de l’énergie solaire pourrait profiter à d’autres pays africains” Dans votre Policy Paper intitulé « Energies renouvelables en Afrique : Enjeux, défis et opportunités » vous expliquez l'importance de ces énergies et vous précis ...

Sur quelles contraintes faut-il anticiper lorsqu’on évoque la croissance de l’Afrique? Comment guider les décideurs politiques dans les priorités à définir pour piloter l’économie et arriver à bon port dans le monde qui vient? Le séminaire organisé le 11 avril à Paris par le PCNS et le Centre de développement de l’OCDE a apporté des éléments de réponse. La discussion s’est ouverte en prenant appui sur le rapport de référence publié en 2018 par l’Union africaine et l’OCDE sur les “D ...

Les pays du continent africain ont connu une croissance sans précédent au cours des deux dernières décennies. L’énergie, pilier fondamental du développement économique, politique et social, demeure toutefois un des principaux défis auxquels ils sont confrontés. En effet, la majorité des pays d’Afrique se heurte à un manque important d’accès à l’énergie. Alors que les combustibles fossiles continuent de dominer leurs mix énergétiques, ces pays sont dotés d’abondantes ressources en én ...

Adopting an integrated approach to the management and governance of natural resources including land, water and energy is seen as an effective way to improve the sphere of production while respecting the environment. Fatima Ezzahra Mengoub, economist at the Policy Center for the New South, was invited by Stockholm Environment Institute, alongside other prestigious research centers with expertise in environmental studies, to co-author this research paper and share her analysis of th ...

Commodity prices were once again marked by significant volatility in 2017 and 2018. While there are many economic factors to explain this, politics were also present—trade tensions between China and the United States and, more generally, a rise in uncertainties—weighing upon the global macroeconomic outlook and the ‘dynamism of the markets’. Africa, which has countries with strong growth rates, has, however, been able to show solid economic performance, and this trajectory is not li ...

The author is an alumnus of the 2018 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program On a Saturday evening in March at an upscale gallery in Johannesburg’s CBD, the lights went out.  A child in the crowd yelped in shock, but most of the adults let out a gentle sigh of resignation. An attendant came by soon after to assure that it wasn’t load shedding and that the power would be reconnected shortly, but we had become inured to the darkness and the idea that electricity wasn’t something ...

This blog post summarizes the key findings of the new book Energy in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities, co-authored by Manfred Hafner, Simone Tagliapietra and Lucia de Strasser of the Italian think-tank, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei. The book, published by Springer, is freely available online. The book presents a picture of the current energy challenges on the African continent- the Sub-Saharan region in particular- and proposes pathways to an accelerated energy transition. Begi ...

Awad Ibrahim, chairman of the Lybian Organisation of Policies and Strategies (LOPS), one of the few think tanks in this violence-torn country, has escaped to establish contacts with his African colleagues at the African Think Tank Summit held in Rabat from May 9th to 11th. For a few years he was Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy in his country, and later appointed Deputy Prime minister. At times Awad Ibrahim fears for his life, but he believes a political solution between ...

Renewable energy technologies are projected to have substantial growth in the coming decades, especially given the environmental, social and economic drivers observed globally. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region encloses abundant alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and hydropower. The concern is more whether the Arab region will be able to respond to and manage the growth opportunities in this emerging sector. This Policy Brief explores opportunities and chall ...

We argue in this paper that electricity production needs to be multiplied by a large factor in the coming years for East Africa to reach the economic growth rate it deserves after the improvement of its socio-political situation. The rural electrification rate in North Africa as represented for instance by Morocco was higher than 99.50% in the first quarter of 2017 while it was barely 10% in some parts of Western Kenya. We also make the case for hydroelectricity as the adequate ren ...