The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), in partnership with the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), on Thursday, August 20, began the 2026 Summer School on Managing Africa’s Extractives in the Energy Transition.

The discussions at the Africa Regional Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub (AFREIKH) Summer School were anchored around a fundamental question: “How can Africa turn its vast natural resource wealth into meaningful and lasting development?”

Executive Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye, mentioned that Africa’s experience with resource extraction provides an important starting point.

“For decades, the continent has supplied oil, gas and minerals to global markets, yet resource wealth has too often failed to translate into broad-based economic development,” he said.

He stated that oil revenues have generated significant expectations without always delivering the transformation citizens anticipated, while mining has been associated in many countries with environmental degradation, weak governance, and unequal distribution of benefits.

“This history raises an uncomfortable question as Africa enters a new phase of the global energy transition: Will critical minerals become another missed opportunity, or can they mark a turning point for Africa’s industrialisation?” he quizzed.

Mr. Boakye further reiterated that the growing global demand for critical minerals presents Africa with a significant opportunity.

“The continent possesses many of the resources needed to support the clean energy economy, but having these resources is only the starting point. The real challenge is determining what Africa can do with them,” he added.

The Africa Director, Natural Resource Governance Institute, Nafi Quarshie, admonished the need for Africa to move beyond a model centred on extracting and exporting raw materials.

“Africa must find ways to use its resource wealth to create jobs, develop industries, build productive capacity and retain a greater share of the value generated from its natural resources,” she noted.

This, however, she says, requires more than
favourable commodity prices or increased investment. “It requires capabilities,” she said.

Ms. Magdalena Wüst, Deputy Head of Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland, in her submission called for participants to see the Summer School as a leading platform for learning, knowledge sharing and a collaboration for peer learning.

She challenged participants to confront the failures of the past, strengthen institutions, demand accountability, and challenge conventional approaches to resource governance.

“The critical question is therefore shifting from what resources does Africa have? to what capabilities does Africa need to capture the value from those resources?” she said.

The opening ceremony of the conference concluded with the assertion “Africa has the resources. The defining question is whether it can build the capabilities to turn those resources into industries, jobs, value, and lasting development”.