Sixteen bankable energy projects, ranging from hydropower in Uganda to gas in Nigeria, will be presented at The Global African Investment Summit (TGAIS) on the 20-21^st October 2014.

Africa’s rapid economic development has meant that energy development has not kept pace with rising demand in developing regions, placing a large strain on the continent's existing resources over the first decade of the 21st century. The World Bank has declared that 25 of the 54 nations on the continent are in an energy crisis. During the period from 1995 to 2013, the region performed strongly, with an average annual GDP growth rate of 4.5%. Nevertheless only 24 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has access to electricity versus 40 percent in other low income countries. Excluding South Africa, the entire installed generation capacity of sub-Saharan Africa is only 28 Gigawatts, equivalent to that of Argentina.[1]

To meet the growing demand, major energy players will convene at The Savoy Hotel on 20^th and 21^st October for The Global African Investment Summit (‘TGAIS’) to review the continent’s most bankable energy projects. The summit, chaired by former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo, is seeking to direct funds from some of the world’s largest institutional investors into projects across the continent, putting a focus on Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. While Ghana will focus on renewable energy projects, Rwanda will present methane and hydropower projects, Kenya biofuel projects and Nigeria a gas fired project.

Dr ABC Orijiako, Chairman of Seplat, who will be speaking at the event, said that “there is no region with the same investment prospects that Africa presents, especially in the extractive, infrastructure and services industries. Because of the infrastructure gap in the continent and growing domestic demand, we find that there is huge potential for investment in the energy market.”

The variety of energy players that will be present at TGAIS reflect the current energy demands of the continent. They include oil and gas, liquefied natural gas and renewable energy companies, notably Globeleq, Seplat, Greenheart Energy, Sepco and Mozambique LNG among others, to meet all of Africa’s energy demands.

Globeleq, which already has natural gas operation in Tanzania of 190MW, focuses on power generation in emerging markets. Since the company's launch in 2002, it has participated in nearly 14,000 MWs in 27 countries, investing approximately US$1.3 billion of equity across 44 different power projects.  Seplat is a leading Independent Oil & Gas exploration and production company in Nigeria currently operating in onshore Niger Delta basin Nigeria. The company has a 45% participating interest in 3 oil blocks (OML’s 4, 38 and 41).  Greenheart Energy is a renewable energy company that delivers renewable energy solutions involved with solar photovoltaics (PV) project in Southern Africa.

Andrew Herscowitz, coordinator for President Barack Obama's Power Africa and Trade Africa initiatives, will be speaking on the power sector panel, ‘Powering Africa: Opportunities and financing options in Africa’s power sector’. He highlighted the importance of the event, pointed out that “the risks when raising finance and executing projects are such that we have seen a shift where there is more interest from clients in companies looking to finance projects than there are projects. So one of the things we will have to do is work with projects to make sure they are bankable.”

The Power Africa initiative, which has already received commitments by governments to a total of over US$20 billion, has been active in East Africa and is now looking to replicate the model to the rest of the continent. To do so, it seeks greater alignment among donors and for bankable projects to be presented to meet increasing investor demand in the continent.  TGAIS is designed as a platform to meet this demand and bring together the public and private sector to increase investment opportunities.