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As Africa enters the 2020s, issues of climate change and sustainability have gained greater urgency even if not everyone agrees on the way ahead. With desertification and water shortages affecting many regions, Africa has joined the stop-start transition away from a carbon-based economy; the percentage of on- and off-grid renewables is growing in the energy mix, with solar, and to a lesser extent wind, taking a lead, promoted by large public procurement projects and ever more private initiatives.

It says something for the political climate – and the power of social media – that Reuters on 2 December ran a story headlined: “Nigeria’s Buhari denies dying and being replaced by lookalike.” It quoted President Muhammadu Buhari telling diaspora Nigerians in Poland, where he was attending COP24 climate talks: “It’s real me, I assure you. I will soon celebrate my 76th birthday and I will still go strong.” He was referring to internet rumours that he had died and been replaced by a Sudanese-born body double.

A significant market is emerging across the continent for renewables-based commercial and industrial (C&I) energy projects. In all but a handful of markets, the talk is of a potential that will soon be measured in gigawatts, rather than the usual dozens (at most) of megawatts of an established business. As Kenya-based Astonfield Solar’s chairman Ameet Shah puts it, the technology is still in its early days – as in some cases is the quality of its delivery to clients – but the C&I industry will reach lift-off even before the ‘transformational’ 24-hour storage becomes the norm.

The newsflow from Nigeria is, as ever, hectic: political alliances are shifting as President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress splits and the People’s Democratic Party, written off only one election cycle ago, draws back power-brokers; finance minister Kemi Adeosun has resigned over her submission of an apparently forged National Youth Service Corps exemption certificate (she had anyway thought she was exempt, having lived in the UK until she was 34); clashes between herders and farmers in the Middle Belt are now killing more people than the jihadist Boko Haram – which has not gone away despite huge military operations.

Lenders have appetite for Africa’s more attractive sovereign credits, including fashionable francophone markets Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. When in March Senegal raised $2.2bn in a eurobond issue, its Ministry of Finance received $10.3bn-worth of orders for the euro/dollar-denominated facility. It brought African eurobond issues to a total $10.7bn in Q1 2018, following borrowing by Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. This was more than the 2016 total, and more than half of the $18bn 2017 record, Bloomberg reported.

Personalities remain a key factor in shaping a continent trying to emerge from lost decades of ‘big man’ politics. While the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) made much of efforts to create a post-conflict ‘developmental state’ in the last two decades, modern Ethiopia was fashioned in the image of the late Meles Zenawi, who harnessed an intolerant, Tigrayan-dominated political system to a rigid but fast-growing (if unbalanced) economy.

The legacy of colonialism may continue to shape contemporary Africa, but policymakers must also grapple with more recent follies as they struggle to address the legal and financial ramifications of decades of poorly structured and inadequately implemented infrastructure development. Many of the inconsistencies and contradictions that dog Africa’s power sector stem from reactive policymaking geared towards managing the fallout from previous poor decisions, as well as ensuring alignment with the short-term interests of political players.

The Abidjan-based Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) stock exchange is ambitious but lacks liquidity. Questions persist about the CFA franc peg, underwritten by the French treasury since the West African currency was created in 1945. Destructive trends from climate change to jihadist insurgency can be acutely destabilising to under-resourced governments, while commodity shocks are a perennial headache in economies dependent on agri-business and oil imports.

It may be symbolic that, beyond the state-run grid, Tanzania provides an enticing opportunity for innovative investors to build businesses in marginalised communities with aspirations to move beyond energy poverty. Tanzania has been a pioneer in the sub-Saharan off-grid revolution, where mini-grid operator Jumeme and other innovators have been able to build their businesses. Germany’s Redavia last year began operating its first two mini-grids, supported by InfraCo Africa.

Twenty years ago, a new publication was launched to fill a gap in FT Energy’s global map: African Energy created in April 1998 as a monthly report, meant the Financial Times subsidiary could claim to cover the world; previously, its stable of newsletters and online products had largely ignored Africa. African Energy opened its account with news that financing for the planned $3.5bn Chad-Cameroon pipeline was falling into place. That controversial project was eventually built, while others have taken longer to leave the drawing board.

Morocco’s readmission to the African Union in January 2017 was widely welcomed, ending a boycott called by the late King Hassan II in 1984 after the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was admitted as a full member of the then Organisation of African Unity. Morocco sees its future security and prosperity in an energetic drive to build business, political and cultural relations across Africa and King Mohammed VI received a standing ovation when he addressed the 2017 African Union summit.

Political decisions are likely to come thick and fast as a successor is chosen to Hailemariam Desalegn, who resigned on 15 February amid turbulent scenes across the country. The 180-member ruling council of the crisis-ridden Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), comprising 45 members from each of its four regional parties, has convened a three-day congress from 1 March to elect a new prime minister. Providing a degree of consensus can be maintained, this should be a set-piece event; the powerful EPRDF executive committee began deliberations on 26 February to hammer out a deal.

Sonatrach director-general Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour regularly tours the hydrocarbons giant’s sprawling empire, rallying workers and telling journalists about Algeria’s return to producing oil and gas on a global scale, after years of corruption scandals and management inertia. On his 8 February visit to Hassi R’Mel, he announced that Sonatrach would invest $56bn in 2018-22. In an interview, he referred to discussions with Total on an unspecified $5bn project. After a long period of tensions with the French major, this is likely to be a major new petrochemicals project, giving further substance to claims Algeria is back as a force in the industry.

This year has seen policy-makers reassess their responses to the impacts of renewables and distributed (off-grid) technologies, while analysts focus on how changing consumer behaviours could radically change the global energy industry. Conservative development finance institutions have bought into the ‘off-grid revolution’ – underlined by the World Bank’s decision to end decades of support for upstream oil and gas projects – and even the most petrol-headed of oil majors have changed their traditional tone, highlighted by ExxonMobil’s 11 December announcement that it will start publishing reports on the possible impact of climate policies on its business.

The protracted resignation of Robert Mugabe was met with relief and elation in Zimbabwe, and much further afield by those who have seen one of Africa’s most promising countries driven into misery by the former guerrilla fighter’s capricious 37-year rule. Many Zimbabweans of all political tendencies celebrated the prospect that “it is our time now”, rather than facing the prospect that the 93-year-old president may force his wife Grace Mugabe on the country.