Africa’s 2050 Energy Supply Needs Need To Increase Fourfold To Meet Minimum Development Standards: GECF

Africa’s projected 2050 population implies that the continent’s energy supply needs will have to increase more than fourfold from current levels to meet minimum development standards, according to GECF.

In a recent report, the Doha-headquartered Gas Exporting Countries Forum said that despite a threefold increase in Africa’s primary energy demand since 1982, per capita energy consumption has remained essentially stagnant.

This stagnation, it said, is largely a demographic result of population growth, which has seen the continent’s population expand by nearly one billion people over the same period.

As demographic pressures intensified, energy supply struggled to keep pace, resulting in a widening structural imbalance between available energy and societal demand.

Today, Africa’s average per capita energy consumption stands at just one-third of the global average, reinforcing the continent’s persistent energy access deficit and highlighting the growing divergence in global energy equity.

This imbalance is mirrored in poverty trends. According to World Bank estimates using the international poverty line of $2.15 per day (2017 PPP), Africa’s poverty headcount ratio was around 41% in 1982 and remained stubbornly high at a similar level by 2019.

In stark contrast, China provides a compelling illustration of how expanding energy access can catalyse poverty reduction: from 1982 to 2015, China’s poverty headcount fell dramatically from 88% to 0.7%, driven in part by a six fold increase in per capita energy consumption.

Looking ahead, Africa is poised to experience one of the most profound demographic shifts globally, with its population projected to grow by nearly one billion people by 2050.

Reputable forecasts from leading energy institutions anticipate a sharp rise in energy demand across the continent, GECF noted.

However, given current trajectories and systemic constraints, energy supply growth is unlikely to keep pace with population expansion.

As a result, per capita energy consumption is commonly used as a proxy for energy access. It is not predicted to experience any meaningful increase by mid-century, and the absolute number of people living in energy poverty may rise further under these scenarios, exacerbating socioeconomic vulnerabilities of the continent and beyond.

These concerning scenarios raise a fundamental question as to the level of energy demand necessary to address energy poverty and support human development in Africa effectively.

Two complementary approaches help frame this question. First, examining international best practices, such as China’s integration of energy expansion with rapid industrialisation, job creation and poverty eradication, offers important lessons.

Second, from a human development needs and economic empowerment perspective, multiple studies converge around a minimum per capita energy threshold of 50 to 100 GJ/year, below which human development is severely constrained.

A widely cited benchmark is 70 GJ/person/year, which is aligned with an HDI greater than 0.8, deemed sufficient to meet essential needs such as nutrition, housing, mobility, education, and health.

Applying this threshold to Africa’s projected 2050 population implies that energy supply would need to increase more than fourfold from current levels to meet minimum development standards.

While Africa possesses a diverse endowment of energy and mineral resources, including natural gas and renewable energy, achieving this scale of supply expansion constitutes a monumental undertaking, one that will require massive infrastructure investment, scaled-up access to innovative and affordable finance, adoption of context-specific technological solutions, and predictable, efficient and coherent policy and regulatory frameworks.

GECF noted the continent has already embarked on significant initiatives to address persistent energy access challenges. The African Union’s Agenda 2063—Africa’s “blueprint and master plan for transforming the continent into a global powerhouse of the future”—sets out a vision of inclusive and sustainable development, fostering unity, self-determination, and collective prosperity.

Similarly, Mission 300, spearheaded by the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank (AfDB), commits to providing electricity access to 300mn people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, a transformative step towards achieving universal energy access.