“Inaugural UN Interagency publication on energy policy options for Africa launched”

Addis Ababa, 7 June 2007 (ECA) - UN-Energy/Africa, a partnership of UN agencies active in the energy sector, recently launched “Energy for Sustainable Development: Policy Options for Africa” , the first publication of its kind.

The publication was launched in New York at the fifteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-15), on May 8, 2007, during a side event organized by UN-Energy (global), and hosted by UNDP. Five UN agencies/programmes (UNIDO, UN-Habitat, ECA, UNDP, World Bank, and IAEA) contributed one chapter to the book. ECA assumed the responsibility for coordination and editing, while UNIDO provided final layout and printing services.

In his foreword to the book, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA, Abdoulie Janneh noted that the publication, which builds on experiences and lessons learned in implementing energy projects by some of the United Nations agencies working within the framework of UN-Energy/Africa, “is a commendable example of what the United Nations system can achieve when it decides to pool resources and work together to deliver as one. In this undertaking, entities of the UN system have benefited from the contribution of non-UN members of UN-Energy/Africa, such as the NEPAD Secretariat and the African Union Commission”.

Over the last four decades, the gap between energy supply and demand in Africa has been growing. Projections by experts in the field forecast that this gap will continue to grow, and that the livelihood of more Africans will continue to be critically impaired by energy poverty, which will seriously slow down the socio-economic development of the continent.

For years, energy has been supplied in insufficient quantity, and at a cost, form and quality that has limited its consumption by the majority of Africa's population, making the continent the lowest per capita consumer of modern energy of all regions of the world. The challenges to reversing this situation are daunting, and now, more than ever, a concerted effort by all actors is required to achieve any significant progress.

Most UN agencies and programmes have endeavored to address some aspects of the African energy challenge in their individual work programs. Now, in this UN-Energy/Africa flagship publication, key issues related to policy, regulation, renewable energy development, energy access in urban, peri-urban and rural areas, regional strategies for tackling energy poverty, power sector reforms, energy planning, and energy finance are, for the first time, collectively addressed by various UN agencies and programmes, with the aim of highlighting the main challenges and providing some policy guidelines to accelerate energy supply and access in Africa.

The full report can be accessed at Energy for Sustainable Development: Policy Options for Africa

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Background

UN-Energy/Africa is a UN inter-agency collaborative mechanism in Africa. It serves as the UN Regional Collaboration energy sub-cluster in support of the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) programme, within the NEPAD infrastructure cluster.

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