Vera Songwe - Afrikan Heroes

Africa Unlikely to Meet Universal Energy Access Targets – UNECA

July 20, 2021

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Tuesday 22 June 2021 unveiled findings of a study titled “Energy Prices in Africa: Transition Towards Clean Energy for Africa’s Industrialization.”

The presentation, which was made during a virtual ministerial meeting, indicates that 600 million people in Africa do not have access to electricity and 900 million have no access to clean cooking fuel. Meanwhile, electricity access rates in 24 countries are below 50%.

“There’s no way Africa can build forward better if we do not make adequate investments in energy and ensure affordable access for all,” said ECA Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe. The UN Under-Secretary-General urged countries to ensure that there’s cost reflective pricing in the energy sector.

The report cites Liberia, Malawi, Central African Republic, Burundi, and South Sudan as having stagnated or reversed in electricity access. Countries like Nigeria, DRC and Ethiopia reportedly have the biggest electricity access deficits.

“Access to cheap and clean energy is an essential component of Africa’s transformation and industrialization,” said Oliver Chinganya, Director of the African Centre for Statistics (ACS), who moderated the session.

The ACS Director said, “in the context of AfCFTA deployment and implementation, supplying economies with affordable fuel is integral to supporting actions for faster achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and Africa’s Agenda 2063.”

The report deplores the fact that Africa relies mainly on fossil fuels and biomes instead of diversifying its primary energy supply, given its plethora of resources (renewable and non-renewable).

“Households use 86% of biofuel and waste energy for cooking, while the transport sector consumes 78% of oil. Natural gas is mainly used in industrial sector.”

In his presentation, Anthony Monganeli Mehlwana, an ECA Economic Affairs Officer, highlighted the “urgent need to invest in electricity infrastructure, diversify electricity supply and embrace modern renewables.”

In terms of prices, Mr Mehlwana said “Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) or fossil power plants is more expensive” than wind and solar.

“Onshore wind costs $59 per MW while utility solar PV costs $79 per MW. Meanwhile, the cost of coal is $109 per MW and natural gas stands at $74 per MW.”

He pointed out that “high energy production costs, transmission and distribution losses (18-25%) means that utilities need to be constantly bailed out and subsidies implemented for users.”

At this rate, and according to the SDG 7 tracking report, Africa will not meet the SDG 7 targets due to limited supply and access to electricity. About $40 billion worth of investments per year is needed to meet the continent’s energy needs.

The report recommends that countries must provide an enabling environment for crowding-in private sector investments in the electricity sector; apply cost reflective tariffs while paying attention to efficient generation of electricity to lower the costs; and provide incentives and mechanisms to increase the share of renewable energy in the power systems.

The study also highlights the need for countries to introduce natural gas as a transitionary fuel to replace coal and facilitate full deployment of renewables

The webinar was an opportunity for the ECA to urge ministers to play a role in increasing energy investments, and paying attention to the determinants of energy prices, lowering of cost of production and tariffs-setting methodolog.

It was a joint initiative of ACS and ECA’s Private Sector Development and Finance Division, within the framework of a ministerial series by the ECA Price Watch Centre.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Youth Unemployment Costs Africa $79 Billion Loss Annually

June 11, 2020

Dr. Vera Songwe, UN Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ECA

With one of the youngest populations in the world, the African continent also suffers from the middle bulge which leads to having one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. As a result, Africa loses $79 billion annually due to youth unemployment. This was the submission of the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Vera Songwe during a global online webinar recently. According to her, approximately 34% of African population is aged 15 to 34, but most of Africa’s youth are unemployed, Songwe added at the videoconference discussion about African youth leaders which took place during the week.

“We are not a continent that can afford to lose $79 billion a year, so we need to find a way to employ ourselves and to harness the incredible innovation of African youth,” she said noting that “during this COVID-19 crisis, we are asking the rest of the world to give Africa $100 billion for recovery. But if we all had jobs, we would have even more resources than what we need.”

She then urged young Africans to be bold and seek solutions to the challenges facing Africa, expressing her pride in the innovation that Africans have shown during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual discussion focused on the specific challenges that face young Africans amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the efforts of youth to respond to the health crisis, as well as the themes of education, innovation, employment, health, and civic engagement.

Using Morocco as example, she pointed out that as of the first quarter of 2020, Morocco’s unemployment rate stands at 10.5%, increasing from 9.1% during the same period in 2019, in one year, the number of unemployed people in Morocco increased by 208,000, bringing the total count of unemployed Moroccans to 1,292,000. The unemployment rate increased the most among young people aged 15 to 24, with a 3.9% increase, followed by 25- to 34-year-olds (2.3%). According to the latest figures, more than one quarter of Moroccans aged 15 to 24 (26.8%) are unemployed.

The figures, issued by Morocco’s High Commission for Planning in March, do not account for the increase in unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In late April, a report revealed that approximately 726,000 employees in Morocco’s formal sector have lost their jobs, either temporarily or definitively, due to the COVID-19 crisis. The figure represents 20% of the country’s manpower in the formal sector. As for the informal sector, more than 4.3 million workers have declared losing their job because of the nationwide lockdown and applied for financial aid.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Covid-19: Africa May be Next Epicentre

March 29, 2020

Experts have warned that Africa may soon be hit by the Coronavirus in a manner that is not experienced elsewhere unless something urgent is done, especially to bolster preventative measures and support its fragile healthcare systems, so says the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). UNECA says that to counter this, there is need for an emergency economic stimulus of about $100 billion. Almost half of the funds could come from waiving interest payments to multilateral institutions. That would give countries the fiscal space needed to impose social-distancing measures, widen social safety nets and equip hospitals to treat the sick ahead of an expected surge in infections, UNECA Executive Secretary Vera Songwe has said.

“If we want to have a fighting chance, we need it immediately,” she said. “In the next two to three weeks, if we act really decisively, we may be able to flatten the curve and then when the storm comes it will be not be as brutal as we see in Europe.” One measure that can provide some immediate relief is the creation of the special purpose vehicle requested by African finance ministers through which interest payments on sovereign bonds could be sequestered and provide all countries on the continent, regardless of income level, with support, she said.

A lack of resources and staff means authorities must work fast to limit the spread of the disease on a continent where hospitals have an average of just 1.8 beds per 1,000 people, UNECA data show. While Africa accounts for 1% of global health expenditure, it carries 23% of the disease burden, including hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from malaria, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis. “Our hospital systems are so weak and so stressed already that another stress on them is going to break them,” Songwe said. There are more than 3,000 Covid-19 infections in 46 countries across the continent, according to the Addis Ababa-based Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The continent has never experienced a crisis of the scale and magnitude caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Songwe said. While its impact is likely to be felt for 12 to 18 months — with a loss of lives, jobs and businesses as economies grind to a halt — the potential loss of health care providers and schooling would also weigh on the continent’s health and education sectors for years to come, she said.

A coordinated global effort is required to assist countries and businesses, and support the recovery of economies across the world, she said. “If there is one African country or one country anywhere in the world that still has the coronavirus, the whole world has it. We’ve seen the speed of contamination and how quickly it can re-spread,” Songwe said.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry