The African Union Commission and IRENA to work together

Dr. Elham Ibrahim, commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission and Mr. Hugo Lucas, Director for Programmes, Capacity Building & Outreach at IRENA discuss ways of collaboration.

“In Africa, only a third of the population has access to electricity”, reminds Dr. Elham Ibrahim, commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union.  The goal of her division is to reach the target of 50% by 2020 “which means giving access to electricity to about 250 million people”, says the former Under Secretary of State of Egypt.

The role of the African Union Commission is to set common ground rules for all its 53 African Member States.  The African Union Commission plans to develop intercontinental operation on energy as well as infrastructures, social development, science and technology...

“In Africa, we have expertise and knowledge but IRENA has the leverage of 149 member States and covers the whole world; IRENA is an invaluable partner for us”, says Mrs Elham Ibrahim, who has worked in the renewable energy field for the past 15 years.

“Working with the African Union Commission would help harmonizing data collection in the whole continent as well as accelerating capacity building programmes, among other possible fields of cooperation”, states Mr.  Hugo Lucas.
 
The renewable energy potential in Africa is immense. Only a small fraction of this vast potential is utilized: 7% of the hydro and 1% of the geothermal potential.

With massive use of biomass as primary cooking fuel, African countries rely mostly on renewable energies. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of the population rely on traditional biomass. Globally, in Africa, 16% of the electricity and 31% of heat come from renewables according to the 2010 World Energy Outlook of the International Energy Agency.

In the continent, twenty countries have active renewable energy markets according to the 2010 Global Status Report, from REN21. And more and more countries promote support mechanisms to accelerate the use of renewable energies for the electricity needs.

To read more on the African Union: http://www.africa-union.org.

Capacity building, data collection… Several fields of cooperation
were discussed between Dr. Elham Ibrahim, commissioner for
Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission and
Mr. Hugo Lucas, Director for Programmes, Capacity Building &
Outreach at IRENA.