Remarks of UN Special Adviser on Africa at the African Union Industrialization Summit

Rado Ratovonarivo — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:00:00 +0000

Niamey, 7 November 2022 — [Check against delivery]

Your Excellency Mr. Albert Muchanga, AUC Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Trade and Industry;
Your Excellency Ms. Salamatou Gourouza-Magagi, Minister of Industry and Youth Entrepreneurship of Niger;
Excellencies Ministers Present;
Ladies and Gentlemen;

I wish to first thank the African Union for inviting the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa and for giving us the opportunity to address the Meeting;

I wish to thank the Government and People of the Republic of Niger for their warm hospitality and the excellent facilities made available;

Mr. Chair;
The focus of this summit on industrialization and economic diversification is both timely and important. But let's get it right. No country in the world has ever achieved development and economic transformation without energy.

If we assess the best practices of countries promoting economic transformation, ensuring food security, digitalizing education, revolutionizing health systems, building manufacturing, and industrialization capacities, or sustaining peace by creating quality jobs and delivering services, …
we will realize that no country in the world has achieved these ambitions without abundant and affordable access to energy.

To discuss industrialization at the end of the day is to discuss energy.

AND …

Africa has no energy generation for economic transformation.

Even though Africa is home to 17% of the world’s population, the continent represents only 3.3% of global primary energy consumption, 1.1% of electricity generation, and 3% of global energy use in industry.

To put this in perspective, the European Union consumed over three times as much energy as Africa in 2019, despite having a population just over one-third of the size of Africa’s.

In fact, France’s and Germany’s combined energy consumption alone was greater than the entire African continent’s in 2019. Developed countries do not have an energy access problem, Africa does.

Without high reliability in power supply, Africa’s industrial ambitions would have high operational costs and reduced productivity, making it impossible to compete in international markets. Lack of investments in affordable energy will therefore perpetuate the commodities-based economies, stunting the continent’s ambitions towards industrialization and economic empowerment for its populations.

Africa’s reliable, affordable energy access through a balanced energy mix is fundamental to reducing the continent’s import burden, which is over 20% of its GDP.

Reliable energy will increase the continent’s industrial development in critical sectors such as steel, cement, and fertilizer production. Moreover, Africa’s industrial capacities to transform critical minerals needed for the global clean energy transition can only be realized with access to sustainable energy.

Access to constant, adequate, reliable, and affordable energy is fundamental to making green jobs a reality and worthwhile for Africans. It is a precondition and a determinant to attract investments and develop energy-intensive industries related to mining, additional metal processing, and manufacturing renewable energy components such as solar panels, fuel cells, wind turbines, and batteries on the continent.

Industrialization constitutes a core part of the development and economic growth of most countries around the globe. Agriculture and services can contribute to economic growth, but with our industries for value addition, they face severe restrictions in a series of dimensions, for example i) capacity for product transformation, valorization, and limited variety of by-products, ii) quality enhancement and extended shelf lives; iii) standardization and automation for increased scale and quantity for mass-production.

Energy generation for universal access, particularly for industrialization, is the challenge, not the energy transition.

Global policies and timelines designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions that do not take the continent’s unique and nuanced circumstances into account, threaten to limit Africa’s capacity to grow, creating an impossible trade-off between African countries’ right to energy access and consequently to industrialization and the compliance with climate change commitments.

And each African country has the legitimacy to undertake its own energy planning and design its own energy mix, from renewables to non-renewables, … to address both,

• the 600 million without electricity, the 18 million jobs annually, and

• The energy green commitments in the short, medium, and long terms.

This is Africa’s Common Position on Energy.

We all must be highly committed to our common “green destination,” but we must recognize that … different starting points require different paths.

The Africa we want is the Africa the world needs.

Thank you

Front Page Article:

Is this a front page article?

Office of the Special Adviser on Africa - COP27; Africa; Energy

Remarks of UN Special Adviser on Africa at the African Union Industrialization Summit