All Articles
Explore our latest insights and analysis
The Lights Are Still Off: What COP30’s Promises Mean for the African Child
When negotiators at COP30 announced new climate-finance commitments in Belém, my mind went to the children I met earlier this year in a village outside Makurdi, Nigeria, six boys and girls bent over...
Why Africa Still Has Millions Without Electricity Despite Its Solar Boom
On the outskirts of a village in northern Kenya, the sun sets over a newly commissioned solar farm and a dozen new battery storage containers. Contractors toast the completion: “This is Africa’s...
Africa’s Skills Pipeline Is Broken: It’s Not Youth, It’s the System
When I spoke to a senior human-resources lead at a major solar-energy company early this year, I expected standard answers: “We need more graduates,” “We lack training,” “We need government...
Africa Is Adding Renewables at Record Speed. The Lights Still Aren’t On.
Africa is gaining clean-energy capacity at a pace unmatched in its modern history. From Morocco’s vast Noor solar complex to Kenya’s wind farms, South Africa’s rooftop boom, and Nigeria’s swelling...
Funding the Flip: Why Africa’s Clean Energy Transition Is Stuck, And How to Unblock It
The world is in the midst of the largest energy-investment boom in history. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global clean-energy spending is expected to surpass USD 3.3 trillion in...
Africa’s Clean Energy Promise: Between Policy Progress and People’s Patience
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released its World Energy Outlook 2025. After reading it, I was struck by one figure: 1 billion Africans still cook with firewood, charcoal, and animal dung....
Subsidies, Storage and Sovereignty: Africa’s Hidden Grid Challenge
At the COP30 roundtable in Belém, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a quiet but pointed warning: “The world will not achieve clean energy for all unless we invest massively in grids,...
The Price of Clean Energy: Why Africa Still Pays More for Sunlight Than Oil
At COP30 in Belém, amid speeches about green growth and net-zero futures, one statement is worth noting. “For much of the developing world, high debt, high risk and a high cost of capital make...
Critical Minerals in Africa: Energy Transition Supply Chains, Skills, and Strategic Policy
As a continent, we sit on the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, manganese, platinum, lithium and graphite. the very minerals that make electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar batteries and green...
Energy Access, Mini-Grids and the Hidden Fossil Dilemma: Solar That Still Runs on Diesel
As the sun sets over a village in northern Tanzania, the solar-powered mini-grid hums to life, lighting homes that were once in darkness. Children gather around charging phones, shop owners keep...
Locked In: The Debt, Subsidy and Oil Economy Holding Africa Back from a Just Energy Transition
Africa stands at a critical crossroads in its energy story. On one path lies renewal, powered by clean technologies, decentralised systems, local value chains and climate resilience. On the other...
Only One-Third of National Climate Pledges Include Fossil-Fuel Phase-Out, Where Does Africa Stand?
It is one of those statistics that seems too small for the size of the problem.Only about one in three of the world’s updated national climate pledges mentions the words “phase-out” or “phase-down”...