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African nations striving for energy transition to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner and renewable energy sources are making big strides. However, they are also grappling with challenges of energy security.
This was revealed at the second Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA) Investment Forum convened jointly by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Government of Sierra Leone and officially launched on October 22, 2025, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
While officially opening the forum, IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera said: “Renewables have become the most affordable source of power generation. Yet the gap between Africa’s vast renewable energy potential and actual deployment remains wide.”
He urged participants: “We must act urgently and collaboratively to remove persistent financial barriers and ensure affordable capital reaches viable projects.”
The two-day event builds on the success of last year’s inaugural forum in Nairobi, which mobilised a project pipeline valued at $2.7 billion and around 1 gigawatt of potential renewable power generation capacity.
Through the APRA Investment Forum, IRENA is deploying its full range of project facilitation tools and partnerships to de-risk investment, unlock innovative financing, and channel capital where it is most needed, La Camera added.
“Sierra Leone is proud to host the 2025 APRA Summit following the signing of a 2.2 billion Mission 300 Compact where we aim to increase the share of renewables from 46% to 52%,” said Kandeh Yumkella, Energy Sector Lead, Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security (PI-CREF) and Energy Governance Coordination Group (EGCG).
The International Energy Forum (IEF) says that despite improvements in global energy access, around 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity — nearly 80 per cent of the world’s total.
“This limits their access to information and communication and forces them to rely on traditional sources of fuel for cooking and heating, which causes indoor air pollution.”
Panellists and energy experts participating at the 2025 APRA forum corroborate these facts of energy transition that Africa is grappling with various challenges of expanding energy access for its large population.
To this end, Yumkella indicated: “Africa is in a complex energy transition, working to harness its vast renewable energy potential while confronting persistent energy security challenges rooted in energy poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and economic constraints.
The African power transition effort is highly affected by the existing grid systems inefficiencies, and the continent needs to reform its grid systems, according to Yumkella.
“The power utilities in Africa are poorly maintained and not designed well and hence hinder modernisation and perpetuate energy poverty. Most African countries continue to experience frequent load-shedding and power outages, which disrupt economic activity and show that adding renewables without grid upgrades is insufficient for reliable power,” he added.
Gloria Magombo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Zimbabwe, said her country, despite its commitment to energy transition, still continues to use coal for energy due to its efforts of ensuring energy security.
The cost of capital for clean energy projects in Africa is significantly higher than in developed nations, deterring private investment, she said.
“While global renewable energy investment has increased, Africa receives only a tiny fraction of it, falling far short of the billions needed annually to meet energy goals,” Magombo pointed out and added that this gap is exacerbated by high debt levels and the withdrawal of some international climate finance.
Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of Economics, Denison University, said Africa needs reforming, or rather transforming, and its financial architecture in order to achieve energy transition.
“The continent is highly affected by the global rules of trade and investment, that’s of the WTO and international taxation, energy deficit. It is the continent with the biggest oil exports. Even oil producer African countries like Nigeria and Angola import the majority of their fuel.”
He underlined: “In the older energy system from where we are trying to transit away from fossil fuels, we as Africans have always been denied access to the technology to look for, drill for and to refine oil. And in the new energy system we are trying to transition to, we are still denied access to financing. We have seen the numbers. Africa receives only one per cent of the global financing for renewables, even though we have the largest potential in the world. We also have restricted or limited access to manufacturing and deploy renewables infrastructure to unleash the full potential of the continent.”
Africa has the potential to produce 1,000 times its anticipated energy needs from renewables by 2040, Kaboub said. “That is technically within reach, and yet we have no access to financing and manufacturing technology. I hope APRA becomes the platform that can fully unleash the potential of this continent.”
Africa’s structural transformation coincidentally requires policies that simultaneously address the root causes of external debt, but all of these are climate adaptation policies, he further noted.
“Investing in food sovereignty, renewable energy, real green industrialisation allows us to climb the value chain rather than remain locked at the bottom of the hierarchy as exporters of raw materials, or now the ambition is to be exporters of slightly processed raw materials.”
“We want to climb the full value chain and unleash the full potential for the continent that will be the largest market on the planet by 2050. We’ll be a continent of 2.5 billion people, and without energy there’ll be no development, there’ll be no health… none of the SDGs are achievable without the energy potential that we can unleash here.”
IRENA evidence also shows that despite having some of the world’s best solar resources, the continent has only a fraction of its renewable potential installed due to these interwoven issues.
A lack of consistent, transparent, and long-term energy policies creates uncertainty for investors and eligibility criteria for distributed renewable energy can unintentionally stifle innovation and exclude smaller players.
Many African economies depend heavily on fossil fuels for revenue and electricity, and leaders argue for the continued use of natural gas as a ‘transition fuel’ to power industrialisation. This dual dependence pits the urgent need for reliable energy to develop against the global imperative to decarbonise. African leaders emphasise that the continent’s contribution to global emissions is minimal and that its right to development must be prioritised.
The forum facilitation will focus on advancing identified projects, strengthening investment readiness, and supporting implementation efforts across APRA countries.