{
  "id": 3457624,
  "title": "Future of Energy Conference: Africa cannot industrialise in the dark – ECOWAS Bank President",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/26/future-of-energy-conference-africa-cannot-industrialise-in-the-dark",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-08-26T07:19:41.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Adom Online",
    "slug": "adom-online",
    "url": "https://www.adomonline.com/future-of-energy-conference-africa-cannot-industrialise-in-the-dark-ecowas-bank-president/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "At the Future of Energy Conference 2026 in Accra, Dr George Nana Agyekum Donkor, President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, emphasized that Africa's industrialization aspirations will remain unattainable without dependable, affordable, and abundant energy. He lamented that Africa has long supplied the world with raw materials like cocoa, gold, and bauxite while importing finished goods at a considerable premium, constraining value addition, job creation, and economic transformation. Dr Donkor emphasized during his keynote address that Africa cannot industrialize in the dark.\n\nTo achieve Africa's industrialization agenda, he argued for deliberate policymaking, stronger coordination, and substantial investment in energy infrastructure. The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that Africa needs approximately $25 billion annually to attain universal electricity access, underscoring the magnitude of investment required to bridge the continent's energy gap. Dr Donkor highlighted that the EBID has already committed over $1 billion of its resources towards the energy value chain as of June 2026, investing in electricity generation, transmission and distribution, and fuel procurement to maintain economic activity. He further revealed that the bank's Growth, Resilience, and Optimization Strategy plans to allocate a minimum of $2 billion to the energy sector by 2030.\n\nTo address Africa's energy deficit and lay the groundwork for industrialization, Dr Donkor proposed a four-pronged strategy: strengthening national and regional grid systems, deploying large-scale renewable energy systems, leveraging domestic natural gas resources, and expanding embedded generation capacity within industries. He stressed that the mixed energy system should encompass reliable electricity, renewable energy, natural gas, regional power pools, and distributed energy solutions, not just to increase electricity access but to ensure industries receive affordable, reliable, and sufficient energy to fuel manufacturing, value addition, employment creation, and economic transformation.\n\nThe Africa Mineral Development Centre (AMDC) also stressed that Africa should move beyond merely extracting and exporting raw minerals and develop industries capable of converting its abundant natural resources into higher-value products. Claudine Sigam, the interim Director-General of the AMDC, pointed out that Africa already possesses many of the mineral resources necessary for the global energy transition but needs to develop the energy, industrial capacity, skills, and markets required to transform these resources into materials, competitive enterprises, jobs, and sustainable prosperity. She urged Africa to broaden its focus from minerals to materials, value chains, and markets to create a more sustainable and prosperous future. The Future of Energy Conference 2026 in Accra is themed \"Powering Africa's Industrial Transformation: Energy Systems for Value Addition and Competitiveness.\"",
  "summary": "President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Dr George Nana Agyekum Donkor, has warned that Africa’s industrialisation ambitions will remain elusive without adequate, reliable and affordable energy. He said Africa had for decades supplied the world with raw materials, including cocoa, gold and bauxite, while importing finished products at significantly higher costs, […]",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 5,
    "also_reported_by": [
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        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/25/africa-must-define-and-build-its-own-future-veep-opoku-agyemang-tells",
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        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/25/uk-envoy-africa-must-close-funding-gap-to-commercialise-bioeconomy",
        "published": "2026-08-25T18:01:56.000Z"
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    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}