Africa's Energy Poverty is an Existential Crisis

I am pleased to announce that I am becoming a Distinguished Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub, an organization devoted to the idea that abundant energy is central to economic development. This is more than just a new position for me. Joining the leadership team of the Hub—which promotes and embodies fresh approaches to energy—will facilitate my shift to playing a more vocal and focused role in helping solve Africa’s existential crisis of energy poverty.

Why am I now calling energy poverty an existential crisis for the continent?

In one of my earlier Substack posts, I argued that when it comes to energy access “all options were on the table – including coal.” I referred to the continent’s energy poverty as a “national security crisis.” It was and remains my judgment that Africa’s persistent energy shortages threaten to derail any and all of Africa’s plausible advantages such as a large and youthful population, vast natural resources including arable lands and critical minerals, or the promise of green energy.

The constant refrain of the energy poverty statistics in Africa has almost deprived the numbers of meaning: nearly 600 million live without access to any electricity, 900 million rely on biomass (wood, charcoal, and dung) for cooking, and almost none enjoy the reliable power taken for granted in the rich world. Understand that behind these numbers lies impending economic catastrophe for these individuals and their communities. Whether in rural Liberia or urban neighborhoods around Bangui, development is no longer simply slow—it’s impossible. Some of the most basic processes of modern life remain perpetually out of reach. Hospitals cannot refrigerate vaccines. Schools remain cut off from digital tools. Businesses shut down when the power does.

And at its current pace of electrification, Africa will still have half a billion people without electricity by 2030. And without delivering on affordable reliable power, very few of the 12 million young Africans entering the labor market each year will find a job.

Energy poverty has long ago moved beyond a mere development challenge. It is now an existential crisis—and we must address it with the urgency and focus such a crisis demands.

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No Power, No Progress

An existential crisis envisions the real possibility of a society’s fabric torn beyond recovery. It imagines the disintegration of its political, economic and social structure. Internal strife in Somalia since 1988, the ongoing civil war in Sudan, and the 2014 Ebola Virus outbreak in West Africa all reached existential levels.

Here’s why energy poverty belongs on this list. Lack of power blocks Africa’s ability to industrialize, digitize or modernize. Lack of power pushes Africa further behind other regions, reduces the value of its trade with the rest of the world and exposes it to the most disruptive effects of climate change. Elsewhere in the world, economic planners have taken for granted that manufacturing will remain an essential element of economic growth. There is now a push across the industrialized world to reshore manufacturing. The real competition seems to be around artificial intelligence and its implications for life. But the lack of power severely limits how much the African economy can even participate in this conversation, when the basic building blocks—reliable low-cost power for data centers—remain unavailable.

Viewed through this prism, addressing Africa’s energy poverty with off-grid solar kits or clean cookstove programs is not only insufficient, it seems almost insulting. Trapped in a holding pattern—like an aircraft awaiting permission to land—the continent’s ambitious youth remain jobless, without the tools to convert ideas to enterprises. Health and agricultural systems consistently deliver suboptimal results without refrigeration of essential drugs or cold chains to preserve harvests.

A Generational Crossroads

Africa’s energy poverty is an existential crisis politically as well. In the West, power outages or load shedding are temporary inconveniences. In Africa, they are daily occurrences—and day by day they erode the social contract. They chip away and undermine the state’s legitimacy. A state incapable of holding its end of the bargain in providing basic public goods will struggle to command the respect and loyalty of its people. The relationship between state and people deteriorates, a situation that further exacerbates fragility.

Africa is home to the world’s youngest population. In the coming decades, it will also be the largest source of new labor market entrants. But without electricity, the continent’s demographic advantage risks becoming a demographic crisis.

Ending energy poverty is no longer optional. It is the prerequisite for every other goal: job creation, industrialization, digital innovation, public health, and climate resilience.

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How Does One Address an Existential Crisis?

As I have argued before – all options must remain on the table. What does it look like when all options are on the table? For example – in the face of a pandemic that threatened life and the economy, the US spent $5 trillion over a three-year period. That is the appropriate scale of a response to an existential crisis. A response of this scale has eluded the continent.

For development practitioners and the governments they support, treating energy poverty as an existential crisis means filtering all development spending through a sieve of how it supports and advances energy. It is about rethinking previous assumptions and reimagining solutions. The Energy for Growth Hub specializes in such fresh approaches. Since its founding, the Hub has pushed for energy investment as central to economic development. It began advocating for the World Bank to lift its ban on nuclear years ago, well before the current President made it a policy objective. It was pushing for a Modern Energy Minimum of at least 1,000 kWh per person before the concept became popular in development circles. It is now proposing multiple ways to boost investment in energy systems, even in the face of the dismantling of the global aid system as we know it.

For the last three years, I have proudly served on the Board of the Hub. I am now moving to be more directly involved in shaping global policies by joining the core team. I will remain focused on infrastructure writ large and the governance that makes its construction and maintenance possible. But in my new role with the Hub, I will focus on power and its implications for the continent’s demographics, urbanization, industrialization and productivity. I will use the Hub’s platform to argue my case, influence policy and build consensus around the idea that Africa cannot industrialize in the dark.

Africa does not just need energy. It needs power—in every sense of the word. The power to define its own future. The power to light up homes, industries, and dreams.

Until that happens, no conversation about Africa’s rise is complete. And no promise of global progress is credible.