- Powering Africa: Summit, January 28-30, 2015, St. Regis Hotel, Washington, D.C.
- EnergyNet will host the Powering Africa: Summit from 28-30th January at the St Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The Summit, focused on investment and policy strategy in sub-Saharan Africa, will welcome 70 top-level speakers from the United States government and various African countries' public and private sectors. Seven unique sessions will outline the global commitment to improving access to power across the African continent. It will also serve as a platform to encourage deals to be brokered between governments and power companies with the end goal of delivering power to the 2 out of 3 sub-Saharan Africans who live without access to electricity.
In addition to seven African ministers and over a dozen private sector investors, several senior U.S. Government officials are scheduled to speak including: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz; EX-Im Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg; USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah; Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Dana Hyde; Overseas Private Investment Corporation President Elizabeth Littlefield; Leocadia Zak, Director of the US Trade and Development Agency; US African Development Foundation President Shari Berenbach; Amb. Patrick Gaspard, United States Ambassador to South Africa and Power Africa Coordinator Andrew Herscowitz.
"The task to power Africa lies in the hands of the investors - particularly those who have not previously invested before," said Simon Gosling, Managing Director of EnergyNet. "Many of these potential investors, especially in the United States, may be currently unaware of the opportunities on the continent in terms of power project financing. While we encourage investors to explore and examine carefully those opportunities, we don't expect them to travel to every corner of Africa searching them out; that is why for the first time we're hosting the Powering Africa: Summit in Washington, D.C. The Summit serves as a valuable resource to connect a variety of parties all focused on increasing energy access in sub-Saharan Africa."
The Summit will have an overarching focus on President Obama's Power Africa initiative designed to increase access to electricity in all of sub-Saharan Africa. Power Africa seeks to strengthen the institutional and human capacity needed to attract investment on a long-term, sustainable basis, and to effectively manage a growing power sector.
Since its launch in late June 2013, Power Africa has helped facilitate the financial close of private sector transactions which expect to produce over 3,100 Megawatts (MW) of new generation capacity. Notably Power Africa's more than 80 private sector partners have committed more than $20 billion for the development of new power projects, and the initiative has also forged strategic partnerships with the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the Government of Sweden, which combined have committed an additional $9 billion.
