by Ifeanyi Onuba
Nigeria
The
World Bank Group on Wednesday announced the commitment of $5bn (N800bn)
in new technical and financial support to energy projects in six
African countries.
The countries, which have partnered the
Power Africa initiative of the United States President, Barack Obama,
are Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia and Tanzania.
In a statement made available to our
correspondent in Abuja, the bank quoted the President of the group, Dr.
Jim Yong Kim, to have said the new financial commitment was urgently
needed to generate more electricity for the people of Africa.
The statement said that despite the fact
that Africa possessed some of the world’s largest hydropower,
geothermal, wind and solar potential as well as significant oil and
natural gas reserves, 600 million of its population had no access to
electricity.
He said, “We think that the US Power
Africa initiative will play an extremely important role in achieving the
goal of providing electricity for Africa.
“So, today, I’m very pleased to announce
that the World Bank Group, following President Obama’s lead, will
partner with Power Africa by committing $5bn in direct financing,
investment guarantees, and advisory services for project preparation in
Power Africa’s six initial partner countries, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya,
Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.
“The US government and the World Bank
Group are working now on specific tasks and milestones, which could help
to achieve one quarter of Power Africa’s goal of generating 10,000
megawatts of new power in sub-Saharan Africa.”
He added that the power crisis on the
continent of Africa had forced families and communities to spend
significant amounts of their income on costly and unhealthy forms of
energy, such as diesel generators, or wood for indoor cooking fires.
The statement said while Africa, with a
vast hydropower potential, used just eight per cent of its untapped
water force, Western Europe was using 85 per cent of its available
hydropower potential, which had contributed to its economic development
and industrialisation.
It also quoted the bank’s Vice President
for Africa, Makhtar Diop, as saying that the group was currently
working with African leaders and other development partners to create
power pools in the region.
Diop said, “Like Europe and the rest of
the world, Africa deserves the same opportunity to exploit this green
source of power to improve the lives and economic prospects of its
people. Beyond building up power generators, they must be connected to
the market, which calls for regional cooperation to build the
transmission network.
“We are working with African leaders and
their development partners to create power pools in Africa’s east,
west, central and southern sub-regions.
“Those countries with abundant
geothermal, gas, hydro, solar, and wind resources can feed their excess
power supply into a common pool, while neighbouring states with less
energy and generation capacity can benefit from this integrated approach
to delivering electricity to their people.”
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