Empowering Africa

Access to electricity is a key factor for the future of the African continent. Energy poverty and lack of universal access to electricity services are, in fact, remarkably hurting human progress in Africa. Today, sub-Saharan Africa hosts 14 percent of the world’s population but 60 percent of the world’s people without access to electricity: of the more than 1 billion people globally who had no access to electricity, around 600 million lived in the region. In these conditions, many African countries are unable to develop a solid economy or provide basic health and education services to their citizens. Starting from the analysis of present and future economic, demographic, social and technological trends, Empowering Africa offers an in-depth assessment of the current status and of the future prospects of access to electricity in the African continent. The volume describes the main developments in the Africa’s electricity sector, addressing the issue both from a regional and a thematic point of view, and attempting to define the key trends of a sector that will necessarily contribute to shape the continent’s political, social and economic dynamics for the next decades.

Houda Ben Jannet Allal, General Director, Observatoire Méditerranéen de l’Energie (OME), Paris

Antonio Cammisecra, Chief Executive Officer, Enel Green Power, Rome

Lorenzo Colantoni, Research Fellow, Energy, Climate and Resources Program, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Rome

Robert Ronald Denda, Head - Network Technology & Innovation,　Global Infrastructure and Network, Enel, Rome

Helen Hoka, Policy Analyst, Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, Nairobi

Agathe Maupin, Research Associate, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux

Giuseppe Montesano, Deputy Director, Enel Foundation, Rome

Richard Munang, Coordinator - Africa Regional Climate Change Programme, UNEP, Nairobi

Jean-Paul Nome Abiaga, Adviser, Office of the Director-General, UNESCO, Paris

Yemi Oke, Associate Professor, University of Lagos, Lagos

Silvia Pariente-David, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center

Izael Pereira Da Silva, Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research and Innovation, Strathmore University, Nairobi

Nicolò Sartori, Head, Energy, Climate and Resources Program, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Rome

Josefina Stubbs, Deputy Director, Enel Foundation, Rome

Simone Tagliapietra, Research Fellow, Bruegel, Brussels