COUNTRIES need access to cheap and reliable energy for their economies to grow and to underpin a better quality of life for their populations. The preferred energy sources in Africa since the 1950s have been coal, oil and - more recently - gas. Foreign companies with expertise and finance have developed these resources, while governments from Lagos to Luanda and Brazzaville to Bata sat back and watched the dollars roll in. Economies grew, but local populations rarely benefited due to factors such as graft, a failure to create indigenous industries and little investment in infrastructure and education. However, politics has changed over the last decade as governments in places such as Senegal, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Kenya and Mozambique address corruption, plan to use hydrocarbons in-country, and add value by creating local supply chains and indigenous oil companies. But just as Africa gets its act together, global warming and Covid-19 have sounded the death knell for these ambitions before they can be fully realised.
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