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Some pessimistic observers are heralding the end of the independent power producer (IPP) era, with the potential demise of actors and project models that have dominated private sector investment in electricity generation since the 1990s. With criticism of IPP costs providing grist to populist mills across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – feeding into narratives of western ‘exploitation’ and anger over rising living costs – politicians have been calling for change, while developers are finding market conditions ever more challenging.

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Less than a year from elections, numerous candidates are eyeing up the prize of taking over from President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Nigeria
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Shortfalls in financial flows, failures to deal with debt and a lack of voice in global decision-making arenas are longstanding issues that African leaders are now seeking to address, with leaders from Ghana, Kenya and Zambia setting out a blueprint for reform covering everything from UN Security Council seats to the reallocation of $100bn-worth of assets held by the IMF. The extent to which these ambitious goals can be achieved could prove critical to Africa’s ability to finance and structure the energy transition on its terms – but the continent’s governments also need to accelerate their own reforms.

Kenya | Ghana | Zambia
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Questions of greater social equity and sustainable development, more stringent governance and controls over globalisation widely discussed in a world looking to emerge from coronavirus are all ideas that President John Magufuli has worked into Tanzania’s policy mix since taking office in November 2015. Magufuli has built up popular support with his assaults on international capital, donor interference and even Beijing and the burden of Chinese debt. However, Tanzania’s experience suggests that good ideas do not make for good policy if they are wrongly implemented.

Tanzania
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For a candidate who promised to “drain the swamp” and represent communities ground down by the depredations of big business, President-elect Donald Trump has done a good job of placing those he attacked before his election into positions of power. Investment bank Goldman Sachs has three former and current executives in key positions. Big Oil is represented not only by climate change sceptics, but in ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson it has one of its genuine stars at the helm of US foreign policy.

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Production cuts by a majority of Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) producers, working in coordination with non-Opec exporters led by Russia, have helped to raise oil prices from their 2014-16 lows; the strategy seems likely to maintain crude benchmarks at around $50 for some time. While second-guessing the oil price is a hazardous business, African Energy’s soundings of major international oil companies (IOCs) suggest this represents a ‘new normal’ for the industry, as factored into corporations’ base case scenario-planning.

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Egypt could have a future as a Mediterranean gas exporter. Rising debts owed by Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and other post-revolution problems weigh on international oil companies, but IOCs and industry analysts are optimistic about the prospects for further hydrocarbons discoveries in the Nile Delta, Western Desert and other regions, reflected in the latest EGPC licensing round bidding.

Egypt
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It hardly rates on the scale of the drama that a courageous Tunisian population delivered to the world in ousting Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but manoeuvrings by members of the former presidential circle to allow them to profit handsomely with little effort from the award of contracts for a gas-fired

Tunisia
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Efforts to establish a national unity government, agreed in principle by negotiators on 17 December, are foundering. United Nations Security Council resolution 2259, which endorsed the political agreement brokered by UN Support Mission in Libya chief Martin Kobler, gave a nine-member Presidency Council (currently based in Tunis) 30 days to form an administration and gain the ratification of the rival House of Representatives (HoR) and General National Congress. These two bodies will eventually become the parliament and State Council.

Libya
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Department for International Development (DfID) would merge with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in September is more than an institutional rearrangement of the international relations machinery in post-Brexit Global Britain. The move has been long promised, and Johnson says it will strengthen the United Kingdom’s ability to project itself abroad as a force for good.

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There may be strong economic arguments, as well as the ethical objections raised by campaigners, why development finance institutions (DFIs) should no longer focus on supporting extractives-led growth. A Chatham House research paper* asks whether such models of development are still appropriate as the global economy reduces its carbon dependency. Discussion of the paper at the Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy conference in Oxford on 26-27 September tested the thesis made popular among DFIs during the long commodities boom that exploiting natural resources could end aid dependency and drive socio-economic development.

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American and European businesses will remain key players across the continent, but their dominance is in retreat. The full effects of the global financial crisis have taken years to reveal themselves – not least in the impact of stagnant wages and widening social divisions on the politics of western economies – but have been reflected in western banks pulling back, in some places to be replaced by Moroccan and South African institutions.

Morocco
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The aftershocks will be felt across Algeria’s economy and society after the tremors caused by the 13 September departure from the Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) of Lieutenant General Mohamed ‘Tewfik’ Mediene. After more than 25 years of running military intelligence, Mediene had become a near legendary representation of the opaque powers that dominate Algerian politics. His agency was critical in prosecuting high-level corruption cases against Sonatrach and other major players, as well as countering radical Islam across the region.

Algeria
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Plans by Kosmos Energy and partner Cairn Energy to drill a well next year in a Moroccan-licensed block in the Western Sahara continue to provoke intense interest among oil companies excited by the disputed territory’s offshore potential, as well as political debate among the traditional protagonists. The territory is Moroccan-controlled, but officially under United Nations mandate, and debate centres on a legal opinion issued by UN general counsel Hans Corell in 2002, which stated that exploration and extraction of mineral resources in Western Sahara would be illegal “only if conducted in disregard of the needs and interests of the people of that territory”. This has allowed Morocco’s Office Cherifien des Phosphates to maintain output from its Phosboucraa subsidiary, which is a major employer in the region. However, the Corell judgment – which one official told African Energy, “we’ve all been re-reading recently” – has been generally interpreted as excluding new E&P work.

Morocco
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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.

Cameroon