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Too often ignored except in times of extreme crisis, Lesotho is looking to emerge from years of political instability and economic malaise under previous coalition governments, as the Basotho population counts on newly-elected tycoon Prime Minister Sam Matekane to usher in transformative change.

US President Donald Trump is committed to delivering his campaign promises to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and stop funding for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Speaking at a press briefing in London on 30 January, Myron Ebell, who oversaw the Environmental Protection Agency transition team but has returned to his role as a director at the Center for Energy and Environment, said Trump was aiming to leverage US coal and shale resources to achieve “global dominance” in energy supply.

Events in South Africa, whose sovereign debt has been reduced to junk status by President Jacob Zuma’s crony capitalist rule, are another reminder that when power is exerted abusively shortfalls in governance can be highly damaging for the wider economy. This is also apparent in Democratic Republic of Congo’s minerals and Nigeria’s oil kleptocracies, which are both under renewed scrutiny, with international judicial authorities contemplating action against President Joseph Kabila’s long-time business partner Dan Gertler and sifting through new evidence against former Nigerian oil ministers from Dan Etete to Diezani Allison-Madueke.

It is more than a whisper: international institutions and private equity (PE) investors are again exploring major hydroelectric power (HEP) deals, after years during which environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns made big dams a problematic issue for development finance institutions (DFI) and other potential investors.

Supporters of a revamped Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) believe that, this time, the outcome for legislation to reform Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the hydrocarbons sector will be different from past disappointments, when vested interests stalled efforts to overhaul an underperforming and opaque sector. Senate president Ahmad Lawan on 29 September committed the bicameral National Assembly to pass legislation to make the industry more effective and efficient. After years of delay,“we will break that jinx and see to the passage of the bill”, Lawan promised. The Senate on 30 September approved the a 239-page draft PIB’s first reading, opening the way for more hearings.

What’s not to like for investors in President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s Egypt? The government’s International Monetary Fund-supported reform programme has greatly improved macroeconomic conditions; Egypt was a rare economy that reported some growth in Covid-plagued 2020, despite a huge downturn in tourism and other key revenue-earners. Its commitment to accelerating infrastructure development has sucked funds into global-scale solar and wind power programmes.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has won plaudits for his public determination to clean up South African governance, as underlined by his suspension of African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Ace Magashule. This clean-up has been supported by governance-focused civil society and media, and independent-minded members of the judiciary, but as African Energy’s South Africa power report pointed out, public confidence remains dangerously low after the ‘state capture’ years – and this negative environment is impacting across the economy.