The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has sounded a stark warning that Africa’s energy poverty crisis could lock the continent out of the global economic future if financing and policy models are not fundamentally restructured.
Speaking at the 2025 Future of Energy Conference in Accra, ACEP’s Executive Director, Ben Boakye, declared that the era of incremental fixes is over. With 600 million Africans still living without electricity and reliance on unclean cooking fuels killing more than 700,000 people annually, mostly women and children, he said the status quo amounts to “a slow-motion humanitarian disaster.”
“These are not mere statistics,” Boakye stressed. “They are lives cut short, futures denied, and dreams extinguished.”
Global Transition, Local Risk
As record-low solar costs, electric vehicles, and clean energy technologies reshape the global energy map, Boakye warned that Africa faces the real danger of stranded fossil fuel assets, eroded jobs, and obsolete infrastructure if financing models are not reset.
“True access is not just extending a grid. It is light in the home, power in the factory, energy in our schools and hospitals. Anything less means we remain locked in poverty while the world moves ahead,” he said.
The Cost of Capital Trap
Africa’s financing challenge, Boakye argued, is less about lack of technology and more about broken financial architecture. With some of the world’s highest borrowing costs, even bankable projects struggle to take off. ACEP says dismantling inefficiencies across the energy value chain, lowering the cost of capital, and designing risk-sharing systems tailored to African realities is non-negotiable.
“The future of energy in Africa is not just about wires and megawatts,” Boakye declared. “It is about dignity, equity, and the simple right to live a life of possibility.”
From Rhetoric to Reckoning
With global financiers retreating from fossil fuel projects and climate pressure mounting, ACEP said Africa must now rely more heavily on domestic capital mobilisation, blended finance tools, and innovative private sector participation. The centre cautioned that without such decisive action, Africa will remain a marginal player in the global energy order.
The 2025 Future of Energy Conference, ACEP’s flagship event, has become a critical forum for this debate. This year’s edition sharpened the message: Africa does not just need investment, it needs investment that recognizes the urgency of survival and competitiveness.
“Business as usual is a death sentence,” Boakye warned. “Financing Africa’s energy future demands courage, creativity, and action that delivers energy not tomorrow, but today.”
