From Energy Access to Economic Transformation: What Needs to Change?
Session Overview
This featured plenary brings together Dr. Aminata Camara and Dr. Naledi Khumalo to examine the gap between energy-access metrics (households connected, kWh per capita) and the productive use that access is supposed to enable. The conversation is structured around a 2026 baseline diagnostic prepared by the ECOWAS Centre for Policy Studies and the Southern African Development Bank.
Substantive discussion covers the demand-side requirements for transformation: industrial parks, productive-use financing, agro-processing zones, and the tariff and quality-of-service conditions that make those investments bankable. Speakers contrast the policy success of mini-grid rollouts with the slower path to industrial-scale connections, and ask what an honest Africa-wide diagnostic would look like in 2027.
Attendees leave with a working framework for measuring access in terms of productive use, not just connections, and with practical examples from West and Southern Africa of how the productive-use gap can be closed inside a five-year policy horizon.
Key Topics
- From connection metrics to productive-use metrics
- Industrial parks and agro-processing zones
- Bankability and the tariff/quality-of-service nexus
- Mini-grid versus industrial-scale connection economics
- An honest 2027 baseline diagnostic
Speaker
Dr. Aminata Camara
Senior Fellow, ECOWAS Centre for Policy Studies
Dr. Aminata Camara is Senior Fellow at the ECOWAS Centre for Policy Studies, where she leads research on regional integration, trade policy, and economic development across the ECOWAS region. Her work focuses on advancing the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and strengthening regional value chains.
Dr. Naledi Khumalo
Director of Development Finance, Southern African Development Bank
Dr. Naledi Khumalo directs the Development Finance practice at the Southern African Development Bank, where she leads the institution's climate-aligned investment portfolio and the Just Transition Africa programme. Her work bridges public finance and private climate capital across the SADC region.
Session Materials
- PRESENTATION SLIDESAvailable after session
- VIDEO RECORDINGAvailable after session