Africa could achieve full access to power by 2025, sooner than the goal of 2030 set by the US and other major donor countries, while increasing its infrastructure and industrial capacity, said the new head of African Development Bank.
Africa should push to achieve universal access to electricity while accelerating its transformation to a continent exporting finished goods, rather than raw materials, added Akinwumi Adesina, who took over as president of the 50-year-old institution earlier this month.
Adesina has set an ambitious series of goals to guide it through Africa's increasingly complex financial environment, Trade Arabia reported.
"Africa can easily have double-digit growth if it solved the power problem," he said in an interview while attending an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The 48 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a combined population of 800 million, produce roughly the same amount of power as Spain, a country of just 46 million. This constrains Africa's growth and keeps hundreds of millions in poverty.
Adesina said the bank will increase its investment in the energy sector "significantly" over the next decade, while working with African countries to commit a larger share of tax revenue to the problem.
