The metaphor for Africa’s continued backwardness is the energy crisis that many countries in the region are grappling with, says Economic Commission for Africa sub-regional office for Southern Africa director Said Adejumobi.

And Malawi’s Secretary to the Treasury Dr Ronald Mangani says sufficient energy is crucial for the well being and livelihood of Africans and is a pre-requisite for the continent’s industrialisation efforts.

Speaking during a two-day ad-hoc expert group meeting on ‘The energy crisis in Southern Africa: perspectives for the future’ in Malawi on Monday, Adejumobi said the energy crisis was one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent.

“Three decades ago, the indicators for describing Africa as the ‘heart of darkness’ were high levels of poverty; ignorance; illiteracy, disease and other factors. Today, with the ‘Africa rising’ story, the metaphor for Africa’s continued backwardness is the energy crisis, precisely the provision of electricity,” Adejumobi said.

“When a satellite picture of Africa is taken at night vis-a-vis other parts of the world, Africa is seen to be in darkness; hence some continue to describe Africa as the Dark Continent. The energy crisis in Africa is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It is not a problem for Southern Africa alone; it’s a problem for the entire continent. The World Bank estimates that 32 of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with serious energy crisis. But for Southern Africa, the problem has recently assumed debilitating dimensions with power outages and load shedding affecting virtually all countries in the region,” Adejumobi noted.

He noted that less than 30 per cent of Africa’s population was connected to the electricity grid, worse still in rural areas.

Adejumobi said Africa’s energy supply was barely more than that of Spain.

“Yet modern progress and development is inconceivable without adequate energy supply. Energy is the life-wire of modern economy and society. Without adequate energy supply, industrialisation cannot occur; manufacturing firms will not function optimally, the bureaucracy both in public and private will be impaired and households will be badly affected,” he said.

“…imagine in a world where television sets don’t work, mobile phones cannot be charged, the refrigerators cannot be used, fans and air conditioners do not work and food has to be prepared on firewood and cannot be preserved? This would certainly be a throwback in the Stone Age!”

Adejumobi said nature had now presented a paradox for the Southern region on the energy crisis.

He said the decline in rainfall in the region in the last one year was putting considerable pressure on hydro-electricity generating capacity as energy supply sources like the Kariba Dam were dwindling.

The dam has water allocation for electricity generation plummeting from around 45 billion cubic metres to 33 billion cubic metres per annum, decreasing electricity supply by around 400 mega watts.

“Yet in nature also lies the solution to this. Solar power which is also nature based can be one of the alternatives to be taken very seriously in Africa,” said Adejumobi.

Gracing the meeting, Dr Mangani said it was sad that the recovery process of the energy crisis in region had been very slow.

“Sufficient energy is crucial for the well-being and livelihood of the people and it is a prerequisite for the continent’s industrialisation effort. The energy crisis that has affected Southern Africa has not spared Malawi. With 95 per cent of electricity supply provided by hydropower, the country is not immune to the vagaries of weather. This has led to the unfortunate consequence of load-shedding and all its knock-on effects. As of today, Malawi is one of the only three SADC countries not connected to the Southern African Power Pool grid,” Dr Mangani said.

“The SADC region is facing crippling energy challenges and many factors have been attributed to this the current power shortages obtaining in the region. There has been a slow pace of recovery by the region from this crippling situation.”

He was hopeful that through SAPP, the region would be able to provide reliable and economical electricity supply to consumers of each of the members.

Dr Mangani said in Malawi, the Millennium Challenge was helping in trying to address the power challenges by, among other things, rehabilitating, upgrading and modernising the country’s generation, transmission and distribution assets that need urgent repair.

“This project once completed will help in preserving the existing generation, improve the capability of the transmission and distribution network, and increase the efficiency and sustainability of hydropower generation in Malawi,” said Dr Mangani.

“Malawi’s installed capacity in 2015 was 74 megawatts, but with planned projects such as the Kamwamba Coal fired power station, the capacity could be increased significantly.”