IEA (2020), Clean Energy Transitions in North Africa, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/clean-energy-transitions-in-north-africa
Africa’s energy future matters to the world. That is why the International Energy Agency (IEA) is substantially expanding its engagement with African regional partners and in African countries. Since 2019, the IEA has initiated a programme of work in the form of enhanced institutional engagement as well as an increase in technical activities in support of African countries’ energy strategies and objectives.
The IEA aims to support African countries with their energy strategies and practices on clean energy transitions by sharing expertise to enhance data, inform decision-making and guide policy implementation. This engagement takes place in co ordination with local, regional and other international entities. The aim is to support a sustainable and accelerated development through a varied mix of technologies, help achieve Sustainable Development 7 (SDG 7), promote increased energy security and affordability, and accelerate the development of clean energy systems across Africa.
Building on this framework, this report identifies pathways and recommendations to accelerate clean energy transitions in five North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia). Its aim is to take stock of the region’s current energy trends and illustrate policy-relevant best practices that help advance decarbonisation of the region’s energy systems. The report highlights key policy recommendations and opportunities to enable policy makers to build future energy systems based on the deployment of clean, affordable and efficient energy sources and practices.
This report is part of a wider IEA initiative that seeks to foster efforts towards clean energy transitions in Africa by promoting best practices and lessons learned for regional collaboration. The initiative covers three African regions: North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region. Its aim is to support African policy makers in their efforts towards achieving more sustainable energy production and use across their energy systems. Each report will look at one of these three regions in detail to take stock of energy sector conditions and frame pathways based on best practices as well as lessons learned. This series of reports will be disseminated in technical workshops gathering multiple stakeholders from the focus regions.
This analysis is supported through the IEA Clean Energy Transitions Programme, with particular thanks to the contribution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
The overarching high-level objective of this series of reports and events is to enhance knowledge and evidence to inform policy makers on accelerating clean energy transitions in Africa. In doing so, the initiative can help accelerate transitions and stimulate progress towards United Nations SDG 7 (to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”) in the targeted African regions.
As the Covid-19 crisis affects economies and energy systems across the world, the IEA aims to support African countries in their efforts to face the crisis. In that light, the IEA convened a virtual Ministerial Roundtable on 30 June 2020, co chaired by the Minister of Petroleum and Energy of Senegal, to take stock of the effects of Covid-19 and its economic reverberations across Africa’s energy sector. The roundtable discussed the nascent impacts across the energy sector in order to assess what actions can be taken to ensure that energy investments in Africa remain a priority towards economic recovery.