President Obama on July 25 was defiantly upbeat about his Power Africa initiative, countering criticism that two years into the initiative there has been no impressive increase in access to electricity for sub-Saharan Africans.
A fact sheet released by the White House press secretary’s office to coincide with the president’s visit to a Power Africa Innovation Fair in Nairobi, Kenya, says the initiative has helped transactions expected to generate more than 4,100 MW of new, cleaner power generation throughout sub-Saharan Africa reach financial close. The fact sheet also outlines $1.3 million in new grants to entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, and a new $75 million loan portfolio guarantee to support off-grid companies across sub-Saharan Africa. Read the entire fact sheet here.
“If you wanted to start a power plant in the United States, it doesn’t take a year to get that done,” the president said at the fair, after opening the Sixth Global Entrepreneurship Summit with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“In fact, what’s happening is, is that financing, the transactions have been completed, plans are under way, and the work is being done. Now we’re going to start seeing thousands, then ten of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and then ultimately millions of households all across this continent with electrical power that can boost productivity and economic growth all across the continent. So it’s really promising. We’re really excited about it.”
President Obama launched Power Africa in 2013 in partnership with African governments, multilateral development banks, bilateral partners, and more than 100 private companies, with a goal to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa in five years. During the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., in 2014, the president tripled that initiative’s goal to 30,000 megawatts of new, cleaner electricity generation capacity, with increased electricity access by at least 60 million new connections.
At the United Nations compound in Nairobi where the Power Africa Innovation Fair was being held, the president said some of the new megawatts would be generated by traditional power plants, backed by traditional financing and large-scale capital.
“We’re well on our way,” he said, noting that “beyond the grid” exhibitors showcasing various forms of alternative energy represented “the creativity of recognizing that there are going to be a lot of ways of generating power and a lot of different distribution mechanisms.”
“The models that we have in the United States may not always be perfectly adaptable to a rural region of a country, where you might wait 20 years before you get all the power lines in,” President Obama said. “Moreover, part of what’s taking place is because — you notice these solar panels — this is an opportunity for countries like Africa to leapfrog over dirty energy and immediately go to clean energy. And so this mix of traditional products combined with these innovative ways of both producing energy and distributing it is why we think this is going to be such a promising initiative over the next several years.”
