Africa Day 2022: Energy Key to Ending African Food Crisis – ECP

Energy Capital & Power (ECP) says enhancing investment and development of the African energy sector will help drive the development of the continent.  

ECP said this on Wednesday while marking the 2022 Africa Day tagged: The Year of Nutrition. It said “Energy is the backbone of every economy. Energy is a fundamental enabler and key driver of Africa’s development. 

“Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy goes beyond simply keeping the lights on, however, but drives industrialisation, agriculture, and infrastructure expansion while improving access to medical, education, and food services,” ECP added. 

Africa’s leading investment platform for the energy sector stated that it remains fully focused on enhancing investment and development across the African energy sector, making a strong case for energy as a key driver of food resilience and climate change mitigation.

According to its official report made available to Investors King, ECP revealed that “Africa is facing a mounting food crisis which has only been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Climate change, political and economic crises, and regional conflict and displacement have resulted in over 346 million people suffering from severe food insecurity while 452 million suffer from moderate food insecurity. 

“While this insecurity continues to have significant consequences on the physical, mental and physiological development of the population, the burden of malnutrition transcends into the socioeconomic space, with the Cost of Hunger in Africa Study estimating that African countries are losing the equivalent of between 1.9 and 16.5 per cent of their gross domestic profit due to child under-nutrition. Accordingly, this year’s Africa Day is being celebrated under the theme, ‘Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent,’ centered around the need to strengthen agro-food systems and health and social protection systems for the acceleration of human, social and economic capital development,” the statement added. 

ECP said it believes that ongoing efforts to achieve net zero hunger can be strengthened through the expansion and improvement of energy systems across Africa. Currently, 65 per cent of Africa’s population relies on subsistence farming, and in order to tackle food insecurity, governments across the continent are looking at deploying large-scale modern agricultural systems, systems which require significant energy at every stage of the production stage.

“By scaling up investment in key energy industries, Africa has the opportunity to address two imminent crises: energy and food insecurity. The correlation between improved energy and food security is evident: by strengthening energy access and affordability, countries can strengthen agro-food systems continent wide, tackling food security and driving socioeconomic growth,” said Laila Bastati, Managing Director, ECP.

The African Development Bank Group’s Board of Directors had on Monday approved a $1.5bn Emergency Food Production Facility to help tackle the global food crisis sparked by the Russian-Ukraine conflict. 

Africa’s only AAA-rated financial institution added that the funds will help 20 million African farmers produce an extra 38 million metric tons of food to address growing fears of starvation and food insecurity on the continent.