A high-level public-private dialogue on private sector investment in electricity and infrastructure development in Africa hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the RES4Africa Foundation infer that African governments need to develop conducive electricity policies and regulatory frameworks to attract private investment.
The meeting which held from March 28-30, 2023, brought together public and private sector stakeholders including policy makers and international organizations in the space of energy and infrastructure to discuss critical policies and regulatory changes that must be made to guarantee African marketplaces with accessibility, appeal, and readiness for private investment. The meeting was held as part of the framework of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in advancing the electricity reform plan through greater public-private interaction.
Acting ECA Executive Secretary, Antonio Pedro, stated that investments in energy and infrastructure will help close the energy access gap and provide economic opportunities for African youth. “Currently, more than 600 million of our people do not have access to electricity and we generate only 4% of the global energy – this has to change,” Antonio emphasized.
For the success of the event, the RES4Africa Foundation and the ECA teamed up to provide African countries with evidence-based national electricity market regulatory reviews and to promote the development of policy and regulatory frameworks that will increase the openness, attractiveness, and readiness of African electricity markets to private investment. The three day event was split into three parts, including high-level legislative discussions on ‘Energy Infrastructure Financing and the Role of the Private Sector, and The Role of Policies and Regulations in Attracting Private Investments in Energy and Infrastructures’. The final section concentrated on, ‘Advancing the African Electricity Reform Agenda and Developing Competitive Electricity Markets in Africa, Transitioning to Economically Competitive Markets, and Ensuring Reliable and Accessible Electricity Systems’.

“We recognize the importance of continuing on a low-carbon path, that leverages the immense potential in clean and renewable energy. Ethiopia has invested in developing geothermal, wind, solar and other areas of sustainable energy to deliver on our goals. As we aspire to restructure and develop effective national energy markets, public-private partnerships are essential requirements,” said Sultan Woli, Ethiopia’s State Minister for Energy Development.
“The meeting will enable us to leverage private investment in to the energy sector for more efficiency and electricity, as well as accessibility to the people as generation, transmission and infrastructure are necessary to insure affordability and availability of power,” said Herbert Krapa, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry.
“Creating a conducive policy and regulatory environment is essential for infrastructure investment, reducing bureaucratic hurdles, simplifying processes, and improving the ease of doing business,” expressed Salvatore Bernabei, President of RES4Africa and CEO of Enel Green Power at the meeting.
Africa’s energy infrastructure is plagued by longstanding underinvestment. In the past decade, the continent received investment of about USD 41 billion in the energy sector. This number is low in absolute terms, and when compared to the rest of the world, represents only 3 percent of global energy investment.
Africa’s Agenda 2063 emphasizes the need for integration as one of the key foundations for ensuring Africa achieves its goals for inclusive and sustainable growth and development. Aspiration 2 of Agenda 2063 places import on the need for Africa to develop world class infrastructure that criss-crosses Africa and which will improve connectivity through newer and bolder initiatives to link the continent by rail, road, sea and air; and developing regional and continental power pools, as well as ICT.
Today’s global energy crisis has underscored the urgency, as well as the benefits, of an accelerated scale-up of cheaper and cleaner sources of energy. Universal access to affordable electricity, achieved by 2030 in the SAS, requires bringing connections to 90 million people a year, triple the rate of recent years. At present, 600 million people, or 43% of the total population, lack access to electricity, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Chinese telecommunications giant, Huawei, reports a nearly 69% decline in net profit in 2022, hopes for a better bloom in 2023.
In a press conference given on Friday March 31, 2023, the top management of the company indicated that in its operation in 2022, the tech giant generated CNY 642.3 billion in revenue and CNY 35.6 billion profits ($5.18 billion), down 69% from 2021, despite pressure from the pandemic, U.S. sanctions, higher commodity costs, more R&D spending, and a decline in the company’s consumer business, which mostly sells smartphones. With the sale of Honor, its low cost smartphone division, Huawei made a higher than average profit of 113.7 billion yuan ($16.6 billion) in 2021.
“In 2022, a challenging external environment and non-market factors continued to take a toll on Huawei operations,” said Eric Xu, Huawei Rotating Chairman, at the company’s annual report press conference adding, “In the midst of this storm, we kept racing ahead, doing everything in our power to maintain business continuity and serve our customers. We also went to great lengths to grow the harvest – generating a steady stream of revenue to sustain our survival and lay the groundwork for future development.”
According to Xu, 2023 may be important for Huawei’s survival and expansion. “Plum flower sweetness tends to increase in a cold, severe winter. At now, Huawei looks like a plum blossom. Even if we are under a lot of pressure, we have what it takes to thrive because of our growth prospects, steady business portfolio, and completely unique competitive edge, the belief of our clients and partners, and courage to spend a lot of money on R&D. We have faith in our ability to succeed in whatever task set before us and lay the groundwork for our long-term survival and expansion.”
Huawei says it will continue to grow its research and development spending, bringing its total over the previous ten years to more than CNY 977.3 billion in 2022 with an annual investment of CNY 161.5 billion representing 25.1% of the company’s revenues.
The company has persisted in expanding its platform capabilities through its Harmony OS, Kunpeng, Ascend, and cloud portfolios, with a focus on improving the developer experience and enabling and assisting its environment partners on all fronts. In order to support environmentally-based innovation and provide more value for its customers, Huawei currently collaborates with over 40,000 environmental partners and over 9 million developers.
Sabrina Meng, Huawei’s CFO said that the overall business performance in 2022 were in line with predictions, “while under a lot of pressure. At the end of 2022, our liabilities ratio was 58.9% and we had CNY 176.3 billion in net cash. The total value of our assets also reached one trillion yuan, with the vast bulk of that sum consisting of current assets including cash, short-term investments, and operating assets. Our financial situation is still solid, adaptable, and remarkably resilient.”
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have 207,000 employees and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world.

PACCI Executive Council representatives and 18 non-member business association leaders gathered in Addis Ababa on March 20, 2023, to discuss how to enable SMEs benefit from the AfCFTA and to review PACCI’s performance and strategies for the year 2022.
In his opening speech Mr. Djamel Ghrib, African Union Commission Director of Economic Development, Trade, Industry and Mining said “AfCFTA is one of the 13 flagship projects to achieve 2063. The financial needs of the continent are estimated to USD432 Billion. AfCFTA presents an opportunity to develop the potential of its resources and youth wit

h the market expected to a grow to a GDP of USD15Trillion in 2063.”
The Council observed that Africa is struggling with persistently high levels of unemployment, informality, inequality, and poverty and all of which have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and now by the war in Ukraine. It stated that Africa is facing economic challenges which include uncompetitive business environment, a lack of diversification, a largely informal small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, and limited support for SMEs and entrepreneurs.

The Council noted the efforts made to date by the AfCFTA Secretariat in moving forward the AfCFTA agenda and used the occasion to renew the Chamber’s call for the acceleration of the AfCFTA implementation. It (the Council) insisted that chambers of commerce and other business associations need to push Africa’s policy makers to accelerate the practical impacts of the agreement which has remained rather minimal.
A representative from South Africa urged that African governments do more to put in place a facilitative regulatory framework for export. It is heartening to see, she said, our exporters struggle unnecessarily to get shipments through because of bureaucracies and excessive regulations.

In terms of recommendation, the Council requested PACCI to include in its 2022-2025 strategy a robust campaign for free movement of people and for efficient border security and processing. Recognizing that African chambers of commerce face various chal¬lenges and noting the need to realign the services they provide their members to remain effective advocates of businesses the Council recommended PACCI to mobilize local and international resources to transform African chambers of commerce to innovate in order to remain relevant in the face of new realities.

French charity organization, Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation launches the second phase of its Wubanchi project named after a girl killed by a drunken man who tried to rape her.
The foundation officially launched the project in a ceremony held March 23, 2023 at the Skylight Hotel in the presence of government officials and partners. As indicated on the launching event, Wubanchi Project is centered on supporting, improving and sustaining the lives of institutionally vulnerable children through community based services and was created directly by Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation to support young people in and ageing out of the care system.
The project aims to take care of orphans by bringing them together through; building houses with a family setup, education including training, reintegration, and rehabilitation. As a result, the project envisions rebuilding the lives of children into the society by allowing them to become productive citizens with independent lives.
As indicated, the project is titled after the name of a girl named Wubanchi who was a victim of a poor care system, who left her orphanage when she was 15 when it got shut down and manage to live by sponsors together with her two friends. Wubanchi’s life tragically came to an end when she raped and brutally killed in Addis Ababa, seven years ago in 2016, at the tender age of 17.
The foundation has budgeted 206 million birr to implement the project which is said to stay for three years from 2023-2025.
“Wubanchi provides residential homes and wrap-around support to vulnerable young people who came out from orphanages which shut down due to certain reasons in Ethiopia, and provides physical, social, and psychological assistance, as well as education and training,” said Tsedey Tefera, Country Manager of Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation.
The project will benefit a total of 750 citizens. Out of those 400 will be directly supported by establishing houses with family contents, and the rest will be youths in fostering centers under government institutions.
Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation has been working in Ethiopia since 2019 after launching its Wubanchi project which supports teenagers who left orphanages and slowly adjusts and inserts the orphans back into society and assist them to be socially and economically independent.