Obama's legacy for Africa

US President Barack Obama early this week signed into law the Electrify Africa Act, giving legs to his anticipated legacy to the continent under the Power Africa Initiative. Unanimously passed the US House of Representatives and Senate, it sets the stage to expand electricity to millions of households in sub-Saharan Africa. This is significant. It has been pointed out how, as the situation currently stands, Sub-Saharan Africa is desperately short of electricity. The region’s grid has a power generation capacity of just 90 gigawatts (GW) and half of it is located in one country, South Africa (see “Between energy and development is climate change”). The Electrify Africa Act gives intent to President Obama’s Power Africa Initiative, which is a partnership with African governments that aims to double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa. The Act is, therefore, only the first step, and “will require decisive action on the part of Africa’s leaders, not least in reforming inefficient, inequitable and often corrupt utilities that have failed to develop flexible energy systems to provide firms with a reliable power supply and people with access to electricity.” Continued lack of reliable power on the continent is grossly disappointing. And, as the 2015 Africa Progress Report observes, despite 15 years of sustained economic growth, power shortages, restricted access to electricity and dependence on biomass for fuel are undermining efforts to reduce poverty. The report is even more jarring to the senses when it observes how “shocking” it is that Sub-Saharan Africa’s electricity consumption is less than that of Spain and how, on current trends, it will take until 2080 for every African to have access to electricity. Thus the welcome support the Electrify Africa Act will offer. Yet, no new US federal funds are allocated for the project. It’ll instead use a system of loan guarantees to add 20,000 megawatts of electricity to the continent’s grid by 2020, enabling electricity access to some 50 million people on the continent. But there’s nothing like a free lunch. The Act is designed to benefit America’s generosity. Other than the convenience of lighting homes, cheap and readily available power will attract American investments, even as it will drive industry. Therefore, the unanimous endorsing of Electrify Africa Act by the usually fractious US House of Representatives and Senate, often partial to Obama initiatives, is magnanimous but geared towards US interests. It may serve to recall the 2012 U.S. Strategy Towards Sub-Saharan Africa, in which Obama articulated the mutual necessity to engage: “We will encourage American companies to seize trade and investment opportunities in Africa, so that their skills, capital, and technology will further support the region’s economic expansion, while helping to create jobs here in America”. We, however, will not deny Obama his important legacy to Africa, which will ride on the Power Africa Initiative. His immediate predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, had left their legacies which continue to benefit Africa. Clinton introduced the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which offers incentives for African countries to build free markets and open their economies, significantly boosting U.S.-Africa economic relations. Under the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), George W. Bush increased aid spending that helped save the lives of those afflicted by other diseases in Africa, aside from those living with HIV and Aids. The point can easily be made: only a healthy person can have the strength to sustainably engage and trade with. Obama’s Power Africa Initiative, which should prove his signature achievement to make a triad of recent American presidential legacies, adds the other dimension: That, in addition to a healthy populace and a market for African goods, it takes cheap and accessible electricity supply to not only fortify the lives that need it most, but make them prosper.

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Obama's legacy for Africa