Africa attracts only about three per cent of global energy investment despite accounting for roughly one-fifth of the world’s population, highlighting the continent’s widening energy financing gap, the Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Energy Bank, Jimoh Falade, has said.
Falade spoke at the opening of Africa Oil Week in Accra, Ghana, where he said the continent currently receives only slightly more than half of the investment needed to meet its energy requirements.
“If Africa is to secure its energy future in an era of international capital retreat, we must look inward and build our own institutional and financial resilience,” he said.
He identified the Africa Energy Bank (AEB), established by the African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO) and Afreximbank, as a critical instrument for addressing the financing shortfall facing the continent’s oil and gas industry.
According to Falade, the bank was specifically designed to bridge financing gaps in upstream and midstream projects that have been left by traditional international financiers.
“This is Africa’s clearest statement yet that we intend to finance our own hydrocarbon future, rather than wait indefinitely for others to do so,” he said.
Falade, however, urged African oil and gas producers to develop commercially viable projects capable of attracting financing.
“It is imperative African producers actively originate high-impact, bankable projects,” he said.
He also called for greater investment in gas infrastructure, describing pipelines as essential to unlocking Africa’s energy resources.
Falade said natural gas currently generates about 40 per cent of Africa’s electricity, but the continent has fewer than 50,000 kilometres of oil and gas trunk pipelines, compared with more than 200,000 kilometres in Europe.
“Reserves without pipelines are simply stranded molecules benefiting no one,” he said.
Meanwhile, former APPO Secretary-General, Dr Omar Farouk, said the Africa Energy Bank is expected to commence operations in October 2026.
“All hurdles have been overcome and I can confidently say that the bank has come close to starting operations,” Farouk said.
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