Africa needs energy. Nearly 600 million Africans—half the continent’s population—are without electricity, largely because of the continent’s limited distribution network, and Africans make up the vast majority of those worldwide without electricity access. But the European Union wants to change this.
At the end of September, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a €545 million ($636 million) investment package to support renewable energy and electrification in Africa. New EU-funded projects will include a high-voltage transmission line in Côte d’Ivoire, the electrification of hundreds of rural communities in Cameroon, the exploitation of wind and hydro energy in Lesotho, and the installation of mini-grids in remote areas of Madagascar. The aim is both to increase access to electricity and move Africa off fossil fuels.
“A clean energy transition on the continent will create jobs, stability, growth, and the delivery of our global climate goals,” said Von der Leyen when making the announcement. “The European Union, with the Global Gateway investment plan, is fully committed to supporting Africa on its clean energy path.” The investment program could create 38 million green jobs in Africa by 2030, the EU estimates.
Global Gateway is a European initiative to build infrastructure around the world, with Africa its top priority. It has humanitarian and environmental intentions, but behind these sits a strong geopolitical objective: to provide an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Launched in 2013, this Chinese funding program has invested over $1.3 trillion in building and operating roads, ports, energy, and telecommunications networks in more than a hundred countries around the world, from Asia to Africa to Latin America. Constructing, connecting, and controlling crucial facilities worldwide is a way of projecting power, and the Belt and Road Initiative has provided China with political influence around the world. At the same time, it has tied countries to the Chinese economy and provided a market for Chinese industrial services.
The Global Gateway, launched in 2021, is the EU’s own attempt to use funding to build influence in regions relevant to its interests—which includes Africa. The continent has significant deposits of critical minerals vital for tech and the green transition, such as cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lithium in Zimbabwe, copper in Zambia, and manganese in Gabon. China, with its mining companies, is already very active in these countries.
