William Ruto, President of Kenya, and the UAE joined to convene African Heads of State and other prominent personalities in a landmark event at COP28 to accelerate Africa’s green industrialization.
The event was attended by the Heads of State for Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia, the Vice President of Cote d’Ivoire; COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber and CEO Adnan Amin; Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt; Principals from leading green developers as well as industry, multilateral development banks, and key institutions from across the UAE and Africa.
President Ruto launched the ‘Africa Green Industrialization Initiative’ at the event, which aims to accelerate and scale green industries and businesses across Africa, promote climate mitigation and adaptation, and catalyze economic green growth on the continent. The initiative aims to create and implement a new economic narrative for the continent and its role in global trade, develop a full value-chain of activities and sectors to drive continent’s green industrialization, and launch regional partnerships and consortium of collaborations to implement it.
In his remarks, President Ruto underscored that "the Initiative marks a concrete step toward the realization of the Nairobi Declaration, activating private sector-led scaling-up of green industrial clusters."
African leaders unequivocally embraced the Africa Green Industrialization Initiative as the definitive pathway for their nations' developments. Leaders discussed their plans to activate end-to-end socioeconomic transformation through development of value-added green products, pooling of resources, attracting greater investments and de-risking, and utilizing the full range of their natural resources to achieve an inclusive energy transition that leaves no one behind.
"We are forging a green pathway for Africa. Through strategic collaborations with industrial and energy developers across the continent, we have set in motion a virtuous cycle, fostering economic growth and sustainable job creation” stated, Macky Sall, President of Senegal.
The Kenyan President’s initiative underscores the importance of green industrialization to harness the African continent’s vast and high-quality resources to secure prosperity for all. President Ruto announced over USD 4 billion worth of projects that come under the initiative and that have been set up between Kenya and international investors in a wide range of sectors including green fertilizer, green hydrogen, geothermal power for data centers, and climate-smart agriculture.
COP28 President, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, lauded Keyna’s new initiative as an opportunity to elevate the ambition of the COP28 Presidency’s ‘Africa Green Investment Initiative’ launched at Africa Climate Summit in September 2023. He said: “The UAE not only wants to support countries’ green industrialization: we want populations in those countries to have access to high-quality jobs and opportunities. This is the spirit of green industrialization.”
COP28 CEO, Adnan Amin, also highlighted the strong progress of the UAE-led initiative. Spearheaded by UAE’s Masdar, AMEA Power, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, and Etihad Credit Insurance, with Africa50 as the strategic partner, it has already allocated nearly USD 2.6 billion for green energy projects in 8 countries that will add about 1.8 GW of clean power to the African grid.
The first pipeline of projects under the Africa Green Investment initiative include Masdar’s plans to develop a 150MW solar power plant in southern Angola, a milestone project in Masdar’s wider commitment to deliver 2GW of renewable energy in the country. As the UAE’s flagship renewable energy company, Masdar is also exploring a collaboration with International Resource Holding, an affiliate of Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company, to decarbonize mining operations across the continent, starting with Zambia.
AMEA Power projects under the UAE-led initiative include, amongst others, a 300MW onshore wind power project in Ethiopia, the first IPP project in the country. AMEA’s pipeline also includes the expansion of the Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed 70MW solar PV project to 100MW, including 4MWh of battery storage in Togo. Finally, the company is also developing a 1 GW green hydrogen project in Mauritania.
Projects of Africa50, the strategic partner to the Africa Green Investment initiative, include three in Mozambique amounting to 260MW of clean power - the first utility scale floating solar project in Africa, together with 400km of high voltage transmission lines enabling green power generation.
The Co-Chair of the Independent High Level Expert group on Climate Finance, Dr. Vera Songwe, who was the moderator of the event on 2 December, highlighted the importance of Africa’s green industrialization in the context of the COP28 UAE 'Leaders Declaration on a Global Climate Finance Framework’ and the US$30 billion ALTERRA Fund announced by the UAE at the World Climate Action Summit on 1 December.
In concluding the event, the COP28 President and President Ruto sent out a strong call to action for more countries and partners to join the two initiatives, laying the foundation for sustainable growth at the heart of Africa’s economic future.