Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Contributes to the Sustainable Energy Investments Platform Report for the New Africa-Europe Alliance
FEEM contributes to the inaugural report of the Sustainable Energy Investments (SEI) Platform that will be presented at the Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg in November 2019.
The SEI Platform includes energy sector stakeholders, as well as representatives from academia and think tanks. The aim of the platform is to provide recommendations on how to leverage public and private investments in sustainable energy in Africa. The report will highlight the action points toward the achievement of SDG7 in Africa, and it will be presented to the Africa Union Commission, the European Commission, Heads of State, Ministers as well as prominent representatives of the private sector, the investment community and others. The report is based on an in-depth analysis of the framework for investments in the sustainable energy sector.
The Africa-Europe Alliance and SEI Platform
The alliance between Africa and Europe formally dates back to the year 2000 and the first Africa-EU Summit in Cairo. In 2007, the alliance adopted the Joint Africa-EU Strategy launched at the second EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon. In 2013, the African Union (AU) finalised its Agenda 2063, the strategic fifty year vision called “The Africa we want”, which included a well-elaborated framework for developments in the energy sector. The year 2015 was marked by two global, paradigm-shifting developments: the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. In November 2017, reflecting these international developments, the EU-AU Summit in Abidjan stressed the need for increased efforts to establish the right business framework to attract responsible and sustainable investment. In September 2018, the EC President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed to enhance the EU’s economic and trade relationship with Africa through investment and job creation, leading to a New Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investments and Jobs (“the Alliance”). On 8 November 2018 in Johannesburg, the European Union and African Union launched the energy think tank of the Alliance, the Sustainable Energy Investments (SEI) Platform. The SEI Platform includes energy sector stakeholders, as well as representatives from academia and think tanks. The aim of the platform is to provide recommendations on how to leverage public and private investments in sustainable energy in Africa and how to accelerate access to electricity and clean cooking for human development and sustainable growth. The platform focuses on three lines of work mandated to three Working Groups: identifying energy investments for high impact job creation; energy investment analysis for policy and sustainable business; and increasing private sector interactions between Africa and Europe.