Johannesburg gathers Africa’s energy deal-makers
On 21 November the African Energy Chamber convenes its G20 Investment Forum in Johannesburg, the first major milestone on the road to South Africa’s presidency of the G20 in 2025. The plenary session, pointedly entitled “Defining Pragmatic Policies for Energy Addition in Africa”, will assemble respected practitioners such as Olu Verheijen, energy adviser to Nigeria’s President; Bryce Dustman of Stryk Global Diplomacy; Eskom executive Alfred Seema; and McKinsey Africa chair Acha Leke. Their brief is clear: craft a regulatory narrative able to unlock hydrocarbons and renewables without compromising the continent’s twin imperatives of electrification and industrialisation.
Security of supply remains the first yardstick
The statistical backdrop is sobering. More than 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity, while 900 million rely on traditional biomass for cooking. Demography and urbanisation will push refined-product demand towards six million barrels a day by 2040, according to projections shared by the forum’s organisers. Yet Africa’s cumulative contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions remains below two per cent—an asymmetry that accentuates calls for bespoke, rather than imported, energy pathways.
A shift from prescriptive to context-specific regulation
Speakers are expected to underline that many international policy templates mirror the realities of industrialised economies, where the transition to renewables can rely on deep capital markets, dense grids and stable purchasing power. For African nations, by contrast, premature divestment from hydrocarbons could stifle job creation and widen fiscal gaps. The challenge, argues NJ Ayuk, executive chair of the African Energy Chamber, is to design market-oriented reforms that “attract investment, protect consumers and lay the groundwork for sustainable growth,” a stance he believes the G20 ought to endorse.
Regulatory breakthroughs from Lagos to Brazzaville
Several African governments have already moved from theory to execution. Nigeria’s 2021 Petroleum Industry Act, Angola’s incremental-production decree and Namibia’s local-content policy are recasting upstream risk-reward equations. Gas-centred master plans in the Republic of Congo, Ghana and Tanzania are likewise positioning those states as regional power hubs and fertiliser suppliers. Observers point out that Brazzaville’s emphasis on domestic utilisation of discovered gas dovetails with its ambition to raise electrification rates while exporting value-added fuels—a strategy fully compatible with the forum’s agenda and largely welcomed by international lenders.
South Africa tests an integrated resource mix
As host nation, South Africa will showcase its forthcoming Integrated Resource Plan. The draft foresees 105 gigawatts of new capacity, blending 34 GW of onshore wind, 25 GW of solar photovoltaics and 5.2 GW of nuclear with flexible gas generation. Officials believe this diverse pipeline can curb load-shedding, crowd-in private finance and progressively decarbonise one of the world’s most coal-reliant grids. The example is likely to resonate with Congolese and other Central African planners exploring balanced energy menus anchored in indigenous resources.
Financing techniques under scrutiny
Beyond statutory reform, the Johannesburg meeting will tackle currency risk and the scarcity of long-tenor capital—two factors that routinely inflate the cost of African projects. Proposals on the table include local-currency power-purchase agreements underwritten by multilateral guarantees, hybrid debt instruments linking coupon rates to carbon-intensity benchmarks, and expanded use of green and transition bonds. Delegates will also debate how the G20 itself could champion mechanisms to widen African access to reserve currencies during commodity-price swings.
Why the G20 moment matters
South Africa’s chairmanship of the G20 offers Africa collective leverage at a juncture when global energy governance is being rewritten. By the time heads of state gather in Durban in 2025, negotiators hope to have forged a common African position that reconciles climate commitments with a phased, opportunity-driven exploitation of oil and gas. The Johannesburg forum, by testing concrete proposals with investors and diplomats, marks an early but decisive rehearsal. Its success would reinforce the argument that pragmatic regulation—neither doctrinaire nor permissive—can be the catalyst that finally lights up the continent.