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Senegal is a relatively small economy with a reputation for competent, if sometimes flawed, governance of its limited resources. The prospect of an administration with a taste for joined-up government tapping recently identified offshore gas resources, and attracting investment in its abundant solar and wind resources, suggests that President Macky Sall’s Plan Sénégal Emergent strategy to achieve emerging market status by 2035 is not overblown.

Cameroon may be the Central African Economic and Monetary Community’s largest economy, but it remains a political and commercial enigma. Decision-making can move at a glacial pace, in a political system dominated by President Paul Biya, whose apparent aspirations to be re-elected to a fourth seven-year term are a cause of concern, not least for a youthful population living in poor economic and social circumstances. However, progress has been made in delivering services, reflected in the energy sector by national utility Eneo, owned by UK private equity investor Actis, and Victoria Oil and Gas’s growing business selling gas to industry and consumers in commercial hub Douala.

It hardly needs saying that a strong South Africa is vital if a more integrated, sustainable and equitable Africa is to emerge. The continent’s second-largest economy (after Nigeria re-evaluated its GDP) is still a magnet for business; big construction projects continue to rise across Johannesburg. Throughout the country, forward-thinking South Africans retain a sense of what is morally right and also a taste for innovation. But there are also many conservative elements and vested interests – starting within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) – that are holding back gains.

A copy of Jon Marks' presentation, delivered to Power & Electricity World Africa on the 16 March 2016

Is it worth devoting time to understanding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) given that hard-nosed business people so often dismiss the motherhood-and-apple pie aspirations of big global initiatives? The 17 SDGs unveiled by the United Nations last September to replace the partially achieved Millennium Development Goals so far lack detail; the dedicated website (www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment) provides minimal information. However, the non-binding targets should gain substance as national government plans and expert recommendations appear in coming weeks. And the SDGs are emerging as a baseline for harmonising global action, as governments and international institutions work to implement the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21)’s Paris agreement.

Africa is expected to be a driver of global growth in coming decades, but its nature will be different from that predicted when emerging markets boomed and investors saw an escape from stagnant developed economies in apparently untapped markets. A realistic view is that there are likely to be more pockets of prosperity around the continent, and economies such as China will continue to grow, albeit less quickly. But how to plan for the future in a deeply uncertain environment?

Initial responses to the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21)’s 12 December Paris Agreement ranged from the euphoric, declaring a historic deal that could save the world, to the grimly pragmatic. Most participants declared the 13 days of negotiations and months of work that preceded them a success for France and the 197 governments that signed the 12-page pact to cut global greenhouse gas emissions. Running parallel to the global deal, COP21 put Africa at the forefront of an international negotiation, reflecting the continent’s perceived role as essential new driver of global growth and burgeoning flows of financing for renewable energy, improved access and efficiency from commitments confirmed in Paris.

There is consensus on the need to scale up renewables, off-grid, combined-cycle gas and other generation schemes if sub-Saharan Africa is to overcome its gaping electricity supply and access deficits (see Power). Huge investment is required to create transmission backbones and commercially sustainable distribution networks. To achieve these ambitious aims, ever more institutions and initiatives are looking to marry public funds with private investment. But there is another category of stakeholder, which has an essential role to play as offtaker and focal point of the electricity supply industry but whose performance often falls short: national utilities.

Having emerged from its elections in May – the first since the death of prime minister Meles Zenawi, who dominated its politics in the last two decades – and with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front remaining intact amid some cautious generational change, Ethiopia’s leadership is determined to accelerate openings to investment and consolidate the country’s position as the political and economic dominant force in the Horn of Africa. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has surprised some observers by reinforcing his position at home, continuing the Meles legacy but in his own style; his government will continue to promote the ‘developmental state’ policies that have delivered 10%-plus annual growth in the last decade, to drive Ethiopia towards middle income status by 2025.

The purchase of BG Group by Royal Dutch Shell confirmed predictionsthat the falling oil price would trigger a spate of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the upstream industry. It points to a need for even the biggest players to build scale in developing their natural gas trade; for Shell, BG’s assets in Australia and the Atlantic Basin (Brazil) will help to secure a dominant position in Asian and other key markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Pay-as-you-go power distributor M-Kopa Solar on 24 March announced that it had connected over 20,000 off-grid homes in Uganda; it is now expanding its solar power distribution, targeting an additional 50,000 Ugandan homes by end-2015. M-Kopa Solar was launched in October 2012 in Kenya, where it now supplies over 150,000 homes, and began pilot operations in eastern Uganda in mid-2013. Consumer-friendly sales plans, serviced with regular payments via mobile phones (in Uganda provided by MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money, in Kenya by the fast-growing M-Pesa platform), are central to M-Kopa’s rapid growth.

Prime minister-designate Habib Essid initiated fresh consultations with political parties on 27 January after initial soundings suggested the Assemblée des Représentants du Peuple (ARP) would not approve his proposed cabinet. Given the now well-established tradition of political dialogue between opposing political forces, this is not expected to long delay the formation of a fully constitutional and democratically legitimate government, which will end the transition started by the ousting of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali four years ago. Against this massive achievement, huge challenges also confront the nation, not least the deteriorating instability in Libya and Tunisia’s own great economic problems.

South Africa’s energy security remains fragile as load shedding continues to weigh on GDP – which is forecast to be little over 1% in 2014 – and generation output in late 2014 into 2015 could be further constrained by even more frequent power cuts. Margins remain dangerously fine, as was underlined when a collapsed coal silo at the 4,110MW-capacity Majuba facility – Eskom’s second largest (and youngest, commissioned in 2001) coal-fired plant – plunged much of the country into darkness on 2 November. Majuba’s generation output was halved from 3.6GW to 1.8GW, and then fell to a low of 600MW.

Opposition from local authorities to UK private equity investor Actis’ planned takeover of French operator Veolia Environnement’s electricity, water and sanitation concessions in Morocco may be explained in part by a shift in political and popular opinion away from privately financed projects and concessions back to a greater role for local politicians and the state. Morocco is not alone in this: public/private partnership models that give public bodies, and the politicians who lead them, more control are increasingly in vogue.

Launched by President Barack Obama in Cape Town one year ago, the US Power Africa initiative has been making bold claims about its early successes in a campaign to boost sub-Saharan Africa’s installed generation capacity by some 10GW and connect some 20m more homes and businesses to the grid by 2020 (AE 258/5). Power Africa claims it will make some $7bn available in financial support and loan guarantees from 12 government agencies, led by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), Overseas Private Investment Corporation and US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).