How African Countries Can Harness the Global Policy Reframe from Energy Transition to Energy Security

Introduction

The current decade is being shaped by an increasingly fragmented global economy and intensifying geopolitical tensions. Against the backdrop of conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, combined with eroding multilateral institutions, advanced economies are reorienting their energy policy priorities. Most notably, under Donald Trump’s leadership, the United States has dramatically shifted from a climate-centered energy transition agenda to one focused on energy security. This pivot, though stark and explicit in the United States, mirrors a wider global trend.

While European countries like Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom remain ostensibly committed to climate goals, their energy policies reveal an enduring reliance on fossil fuels and a revived interest in energy self-sufficiency. The same applies to China, South Korea, Japan, and the Gulf countries. These shifts are already having cascading impacts on global climate action and financial flows, particularly for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)—including those in Africa. The United States has, for instance, withdrawn from all climate finance obligations under the UN system and cancelled hundreds of aid-financed climate-related projects, including the Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Amid this global policy reframe from energy transition to energy security, African countries face a unique set of challenges and opportunities. With many still grappling with energy poverty, low levels of productivity, and acute climate vulnerability, they stand at a critical crossroads.¹ This global reorientation may, paradoxically, offer them the strategic latitude to redefine their energy priorities in a manner that integrates development and climate goals more effectively. How can LMICs, particularly in Africa, best meet this moment? And what does this reframe of energy transition to energy security mean?

Understanding the Global Policy Shift: From Energy Transition to Energy Security

In theory, the energy transition should be pursued within the broader framework of a country’s energy security priorities, and yet the reality for a lot of LMICs particularly in Africa has been a decisive and even harmful binary between the two. Energy transition encompasses initiatives to move economies and societies from high-carbon-emitting sources of energy, particularly fossil fuels, to those that are low-carbon and environmentally sustainable. It is deeply intertwined with efforts to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.² Energy security is a country’s ability to obtain energy supplies that are affordable for its population, reliable in being consistently available, and secure in terms of resilience to disruption from political, geophysical, and other exogeneous factors.³

This policy shift toward energy security is not new; it has historical precedents. Notably, the oil crisis of the 1970s caused by the embargo by Middle East producers—acting through the newly-founded cartel OPEC—during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 led to gas shortages, raised gas prices, and contributed to inflation, particularly in the United States. In response, the U.S. government and private sector sought to prioritize energy security. Perhaps the most notable immediate U.S. reaction was the establishment of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the Energy Policy and Conservation Act in 1975.⁴ Additionally, an increased policy focus on energy security resulted in technological breakthroughs in renewable energy, such as solar, with the express intent of reducing dependence on the volatile supplies from the Middle East. Then U.S. president Jimmy Carter famously had solar panels installed on the White House roof and remarked that “nobody can embargo sunlight” in his attempt to garner support for the then novel renewable energy technology.⁵ Another outcome was the establishment of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 1974 to collect data, conduct analysis, and provide energy-related advisory support to the U.S. and European governments.⁶

In this decade, an interplay of domestic and geopolitical factors is again pushing governments to emphasize the pursuit of energy security. Former U.S. president Joe Biden’s administration implemented a strong decarbonization agenda to build the infrastructure, systems, and diplomatic clout for U.S. global leadership in meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement—but with an underlying energy security component. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other climate-related legislation enacted during the Biden administration aimed to increase the uptake of electric vehicles, build electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, and add renewable energy (particularly solar and wind energy) into the electric grid. The security component was most evident in the administration’s emphasis on increasing domestic manufacturing of EVs, batteries, and renewable energy hardware to create jobs in blue collar regions of the United States and the inclusion of strong local content requirements for sourcing inputs (such as minerals and other battery and EV components) to reduce dependence on geoeconomic adversaries. Furthermore, rising gas prices resulting from the disruption of global oil markets associated with the war in Ukraine led to a record increase in domestic production of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), bolstering the United States’s position as the world’s largest oil producer since 2018 and the world’s largest exporter of LNG since 2022 (see figure 1).

Trump’s January 2025 executive order declaring a “National Energy Emergency” marked a turning point in the policy reframe toward energy security. The directive prioritizes securing an “affordable and reliable domestic supply of energy” and indicates the administration’s intention to use “unrealized energy resources domestically, and to sell to international allies and partners a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy.” ⁷ It directs the expansion of production across all energy sources (especially fossil fuels, but also nuclear and geothermal energy) and revokes previous mandates favoring wind energy and electric vehicles, symbolizing a clear departure from climate-centered policy. What the Trump administration has done differently is to completely set aside the longer-term energy transition objective and become fully committed to increasing U.S. energy security without the restraint of the climate-related obligations of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Despite the catalytic role of the Trump administration, this policy reframe towards energy security is not isolated to the United States. Even though Europe has committed to net zero by 2050, countries like Germany, Italy, and the UK have revived coal plants, have pursued new agreements for gas from Qatar and African producers and LNG from the United States, and continue to lean heavily on fossil fuels in their energy mix.⁸ Similarly, China continues to expand its coal fleet, even as it leads globally in investments in renewable energy and retains dominant market share in the production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and other clean energy technologies. The IEA’s 2022 World Energy Outlook confirmed that energy security is “once again high on the policy agenda” and a combination of domestic and geopolitical drivers have caused a “surge in energy prices . . . on a large enough scale to worsen considerably the global economic outlook, causing difficulties for households, and industrial operations alike, and leading many governments to recalibrate their policy priorities.”⁹

The private sector is following the lead of governments in this pivot toward energy security. The major commercial banks and asset managers that signed up to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero in 2021 have now publicly dropped their commitments to the net-zero transition by 2050. The reasons they provide for dropping their net-zero commitments include market and political pressures associated with a broader backlash against environmental, social, and governance policies (commonly abbreviated as ESG).¹⁰ Oil giants such as Shell have similarly paused or abandoned their ambitious decarbonization plans.¹¹

As this global energy policy reframe continues apace, African countries are at a crossroads. An energy transition they never fully bought into but had reluctantly begun to implement is now being reframed even as these countries face tremendous uncertainty on how to actually pursue their own energy policy and development objectives.

African Realities: Energy Poverty Demands a Pragmatic Policy Agenda

Across most African countries, national security overlaps strongly with economic development priorities in ways that create a rationale for a clear energy security agenda. With over 600 million people lacking access to affordable and reliable electricity, Africa has more people living in energy poverty than any other continent.¹² When one considers access to reliable electricity, in which there are no more than a few outages a month, the number of Africans in energy poverty is much higher.¹³ Nearly 70 percent of Africans do not have access to clean cooking solutions and resort to firewood instead.¹⁴ This phenomenon of energy poverty intersects with income poverty on the continent—twenty-two of the world’s twenty-six low-income countries (classified by the World Bank as having per capita incomes of less than $1,145) are in Africa.¹⁵ Electricity access is critical to building thriving economies comprising manufacturing and services industries that can generate productive and well-paying jobs for up to 12 million people who join the African labor market each year, create economic opportunities to reduce the pipeline of young people falling prey to the siren song of violent extremism in the Sahel, offer incomes that allow families to keep their daughters in school, and ultimately generate tax revenues to reduce dependence on foreign aid.¹⁶

Yet African countries often treat climate, energy, and development as isolated policy domains. Among many countries, there is a tendency to isolate critical climate adaptation initiatives in low-profile environment ministries that are less politically visible, while energy policy is often the domain of the hefty ministries of finance and energy. But these policy areas are inextricably linked. Declining demand for a country’s oil and gas exports resulting from an eventual global fossil fuel phaseout in the coming decades will affect export earnings, government revenues, and thus the country’s ability to invest in decarbonization initiatives—including renewable energy.¹⁷ At the other end of the spectrum, earnest climate advocates in development finance institutions (DFIs) and civil society in Europe and North America, rightly worried about the acceleration of global warming, expect LMICs to immediately and completely abandon their natural resource endowments as a source of critically needed revenue even as donor funding and development assistance become more difficult to access. For example, since 2017, when then World Bank Group president Jim Kim announced the decision to stop funding upstream oil and gas projects to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals, the U.S. and European board members have supported the lender on this front and actively discouraged the granting of any exceptions in its energy portfolio.¹⁸ The “Say No to Gas!” campaign––a group of environmental justice organizations––has been advocating against the development of gas projects in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique.¹⁹ Some frustrated observers describe these well-intentioned but overbearing and contextually detached advocacies as a new form of climate colonialism.²⁰

This impasse resulting from the tension between the pragmatism of LMIC governments and the idealism of climate advocates is unnecessary. There is a silver lining in the Trump administration’s aggressive recalibration of U.S. energy security priorities and the broader global pivot towards energy security: They open up the international policy debate to consider solutions that are pragmatic, feasible, and contextually appropriate for LMICs. What could be the pillars for such a pragmatic energy security agenda for African countries that governments and international partners can rally behind?

The Key Pillars of an African Energy Security Agenda

To effectively navigate this global policy shift and align energy security with development and climate goals, African countries must adopt a multifaceted approach. These five pillars can serve as building blocks for guiding African countries and their international partners towards such a policy reframe.

1. Expand Energy Production Across Multiple Sources

The first building block for energy security for African countries involves diversifying sources of supplies and expanding production capacity to meet the growing demand for electricity and energy services. The IEA forecasts that Africa’s electricity demand will surge by around 75 percent from 680 TWh to 1,180 TWh over the decade from 2020 to 2030.²¹ Central to this endeavor is increasing electricity production (by tapping into a wide spectrum of sources to ensure security of supplies and reduce vulnerability to sudden disruptions resulting from droughts, volatile commodity prices, or conflict) while mitigating environmental risks. This ramp-up in production should be accompanied by investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure as well as reformation of poorly-performing electricity utilities. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently declared that Washington wants to partner with African countries on the development of the continent’s energy sector through an approach to energy diplomacy that is not predicated on dictating terms or choices of energy technologies to the continent.²²  

Consequently, the starting point for reliable energy supplies should be harnessing the continent’s own resource endowments for a variety of purposes. There are abundant and untapped natural resources that can be harnessed for energy generation. For instance, the African continent holds some of the world’s largest hydropower potential, particularly in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, and Guinea. The DRC’s Inga Dam has the potential to become the largest hydropower facility in the world, and Ethiopia’s controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) could significantly contribute to regional energy integration. These projects, if developed responsibly while mitigating environmental and social risks, could help the continent rapidly close the electricity access gap, particularly for reliable power with minimal outages that could sustain economic activities on the continent.

Africa’s solar potential is also promising. The Sahel sub-region, with its high solar irradiance, is well positioned to become a global leader in solar energy production. Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali are already exploring large-scale solar projects, and the African Development Bank has supported initiatives like the Desert to Power Program, which aims to harness solar energy to electrify 250 million people by 2030.²³

Other resource endowments abundant across the African continent include geothermal energy in Kenya and natural gas in West Africa. The natural gas reserves could be used for gas-to-power projects and cooking gas to help reduce deforestation in Mauritania, Senegal, and Nigeria. And the oil reserves for refineries and petrochemical industries in Angola, Nigeria, and Uganda could produce refined fuels to reduce imports of dirtier fuels from abroad.

2. Seize the Momentum of the Loosening of Restrictions Around International Finance

One of the most significant barriers to the expansion of energy production across African countries has been the financing gap. The African continent has an annual financing gap of $400 billion per year until 2030 if it is going to be able to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals, according to the African Development Bank.²⁴ However, access to capital for large-scale energy projects has been limited by environmental activism, political concerns, the poor investment climate in many countries, and the prioritization of different energy agendas by international financiers. Large-scale energy projects, in particular—such as Ethiopia’s GERD, which was financed almost entirely by the government through diaspora bonds; the stalled Grand Inga Dam in the DRC; or the East African Crude Oil Pipeline—have struggled to secure Western-backed public and private financing, in many cases causing them to turn to Chinese lenders as a last resort (see figure 3). A similar challenge is evident in clean energy, as the continent receives less than 2 percent of renewable energy investments worldwide.²⁵

With the global policy reframe toward energy security, African countries must capitalize on the imminent loosening of investment restrictions in some Western countries. Some European governments have communicated their intent to stop blocking the vote for natural gas projects in LMICs on the board of multilateral DFIs.²⁶ Take the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), for instance. Established during the first Trump administration, the DFC aims to play a key role in facilitating energy and other infrastructure projects in LMICs. With the DFC’s reauthorization currently under discussion in the U.S. Congress, there is a growing momentum to extend its maximum contingent liability, broaden its remit to finance a wider range of projects, and loosen the stringent conditions that limit its ability to invest at scale in emerging markets.²⁷ As U.S. energy diplomacy increasingly prioritizes the pursuit of its own energy security abroad, African countries could stand to benefit from this momentum for energy investments. In the United States’s push to secure energy resources for its own security, Africa may become a key destination for such energy projects, particularly those relating to natural gas and critical energy transition minerals, and therefore attract investments that have previously been difficult to secure.

The loosening of investment restrictions by bilateral development financiers is expected to have a ripple effect on multilateral development banks, particularly the World Bank Group. In response to shifting global priorities, the president of the World Bank Group is currently revamping the institution’s energy strategy to adopt a more agnostic approach.²⁸ This includes lifting the previous ban on lending for nuclear power projects and enabling increased financing for natural gas projects in LMICs—both energy sources that the Trump administration strongly supports. This shift reflects a pragmatic adjustment by the World Bank, recognizing the need to accommodate a broader range of energy solutions to secure continued U.S. financial support. The bank’s decision to take a more flexible stance on energy projects comes as part of a broader negotiation to prevent the United States from potentially withdrawing its financial contributions and participation from the organization as recommended in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, the policy blueprint to which the Trump administration has largely adhered thus far.²⁹

Additionally, regional DFIs are becoming active and visible in global energy financing. Notable players include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the African Finance Corporation, and the African Export-Import Bank. Furthermore, the planned creation of a new African Energy Bank and increasing investments flows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries further highlight the growing interest and commitment to investing in contextually relevant solutions to energy infrastructure development in emerging economies.

3. Pursue Smart and Non-Exclusive Technology Partnerships

A third building block for an African energy security agenda is the active pursuit of research and development (R&D) partnerships with leading entities in energy technology innovation. These collaborations should focus on cutting-edge carbon-free solutions such as battery storage, solar photovoltaics (PVs), mini-hydro systems, and other renewable energy generation technologies. Other emerging technologies to consider are small modular reactors, hydrogen electrolysis, grid digitization, and AI-driven energy management systems. In the oil and gas sector, AI-enabled pipelines, lower-emission modular refineries, and modern combined-cycle gas turbines are redefining industry standards.

Across this global energy landscape, it is worth noting that innovation in energy technologies is highly concentrated in a few regions. Specifically, North America, Western Europe, and East Asia house the world’s largest science and technology clusters (see figure 4), with a particular concentration in two key economies: China and the United States, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.³⁰ Chinese technologies have already become dominant in carbon-free energy solutions. Similarly, the United States has expressed its commitment to promoting technology exports, particularly in AI, nuclear energy, and LNG.

However, while forming technology partnerships with advanced economies, it is crucial for African countries to avoid over-dependence on any single techno-economic superpower. Given the ongoing fragmentation of the global economy, with major powers like the United States and China increasingly decoupling their financial and technological systems, African countries must carefully weigh the costs and benefits of excessive reliance on any one region. This highlights the importance of diversifying partnerships. Middle powers such as South Korea, India, Türkiye, and Brazil can be valuable in advancing this goal of diversifying partnerships focused on joint R&D, skills exchange, and harmonization of emerging standards, as they also host important science and technology clusters.

In defining their energy security ambitions, African countries must balance the drive for international partnerships to access frontier technologies with the necessity of robust local innovation ecosystems. By fostering domestic R&D capabilities, local manufacturing of technology components, and skills training, the African continent can avoid excessive dependence on foreign technologies. Furthermore, strong collaborations between African universities, research institutions, and the private sector will help develop homegrown solutions tailored to local needs—for example, batteries for household solar inverter systems that are increasingly ubiquitous in West and East Africa. Across the more than 650 innovation hubs in Africa are various energy startups (particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Morocco, and South Africa) that can be more closely linked with university-led programs.³¹

4. Prioritize Energy Value Chain Development for Industrialization

In defining their energy security agenda, African countries should adopt a comprehensive approach that views energy not only as an input to economic activity but as an industrial sector in its own right. Both the Biden and Trump administrations in the United States have emphasized the importance of increasing domestic processing and manufacturing in energy-related sectors, particularly critical energy transition minerals. This focus aligns with efforts by LMICs globally, including those in Africa, to boost the manufacturing share of their national economies.

This is particularly critical for many African countries, where (with some notable exceptions, like Morocco, Egypt, Lesotho, and South Africa) manufacturing value-added as a share of GDP remains low—around 10 percent, below the global average of 16.8 percent.³² This disparity highlights the urgent need for the African continent to build its industrial base, especially in energy-related sectors, to sustain economic growth and job creation.

An updated energy security strategy for African countries must prioritize building domestic linkages between energy production, natural resource endowments, and other sectors of the economy. In the case of renewable energy, this would involve plans to establish manufacturing capabilities for key components of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. This manufacturing effort should create backward linkages by sourcing raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, copper, and graphite—which are essential input to clean energy technologies—as well as logistics and auxiliary services from the local private sector within the continent. For example, lithium is a key input into lithium-ion batteries, which are a crucial component of an electrified future. In particular, the lithium that is used in batteries is typically lithium hydroxide or lithium chloride, production of which involves industrial processes and often requires inputs, such as sulfuric acid.³³ Therefore, efforts to increase manufacturing activity through the vehicle of mineral value chains ought to consider not only the feedstock of the primary mineral and end-use demand projections, but also the wider ancillary ecosystem that midstream activities both require and support. In the oil and gas sector, the focus should shift toward building local refineries and processing facilities that produce fuels, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and other derivative products in high demand within African markets. Angola, for example, is seeking to leverage its abundant gas reserves to support development of its domestic fertilizer industry, which would both increase agricultural yields and address foreign exchange pressures by reducing the need to import fertilizers.³⁴

Linking these energy-related industries with local universities, technical colleges, and research institutions is also essential. African governments should ensure that their education and vocational training systems can produce a skilled workforce for these energy-related industries. Curricula could integrate clean energy systems, industrial maintenance, and automation to meet the growing demands of the energy and industrial sectors

A regional approach is essential for developing energy value chains that support industrialization across the African continent. This approach could leverage the African Development Bank’s network of seventeen transport corridors, such as the Lobito Corridor Project that connects Zambia and the DRC to the port of Lobito in Angola in Central Africa, and the Dakar-Bamako-Ouagadougou-Niamey Corridor in West Africa that promises to connect the landlocked, mineral-rich countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to the port of Dakar in Senegal. These corridors are rich in critical transition and industrial minerals, including copper, cobalt bauxite, lithium, iron ore, and manganese—essential for the global energy transition. The African Continental Free Trade Area also provides a platform to scale manufacturing, facilitating integrated regional value chains that can boost energy security and drive industrial growth. Initiatives like the Africa Renewable Energy Manufacturing Initiative plan to build end-to-end supply chains for solar PV systems, battery storage, and electric vehicle components with a focus on private investment, skills development, and local private sector growth in the region.

5. Establish Common Positions and Continental Consensus on Energy Security

LMICs, particularly in Africa, should also seek to develop a unified position on crucial aspects of energy security. Major economies like the United States and China, along with middle powers such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, have the economic influence, size, and resources to individually pursue their energy security priorities. Europe, by contrast, recognizing the individual geopolitical limitations of smaller countries, has adopted a collective approach to energy security that includes bigger countries like Germany and France, exemplified by the European Green Deal and initiatives like the Critical Raw Materials Act.³⁵

African countries can draw lessons from the EU’s approach by crafting common positions on key energy security issues, providing a framework for individual countries in their international diplomacy. The African Union’s (AU) 2022 common position, affirming the use of natural gas, hydrogen, and nuclear energy in expanding electricity access on the continent, was a positive step on this front.³⁶ The AU should continue to coordinate joint statements on other critical areas, such as incorporating technical exchanges and partnerships into foreign direct investments; promoting local content, procurement, and skills-building; and fostering a flexible approach to expanding energy production. The AU should strongly consider appointing a well-respected special envoy on energy security, for instance, to help with coordination among member states, secure political buy-in for key initiatives such as the ratification of the Statute of the African Minerals Development Centre, and provide high-level representation at global fora on climate diplomacy.

Cooperation at the sub-regional level could be even more effective. Regional economic communities like the Economic Community of West African States, the Economic Community of Central African States, the Southern African Development Community, and the East African Community could develop and implement existing joint energy master plans and project pipelines. These common positions would allow African countries to more effectively engage in plurilateral alliances with like-minded LMICs, such as the G77, BRICS+, and OPEC+, in areas of shared interests.

Conclusion

Amid the uncertainty of the new geoeconomic environment, there is a real opportunity for African countries to advance their energy—and, by extension, industrialization—ambitions. For now, at least, the era of “energy transition” has given way to an era of energy security. Regardless of the reasons for this shift, this is the reality the world now faces, which African countries must confront. There are certainly trade-offs involved with this shift, particularly the dim prospects in climate adaptation financing. Yet this shift opens a space for African countries to develop their energy systems through engagement with international partners in pragmatic ways that would not have been possible under the previous paradigm.

Taking advantage of this opportunity will entail both financial and technical partnerships with the United States, China, Europe, the GCC countries, and others to build out the energy systems whose absence has long inhibited economic transformation. Furthermore, it means treating the energy sector as a manufacturing value chain in its own right­­, which has implications for domestic policy development as well as international economic engagement. Across each of these domains African countries—through multilateral agencies like the AU and regional economic communities—can establish baseline common stances to strengthen the continent’s collective position. While each country will, of course, navigate its own path in accordance with its endowments and priorities, common frameworks offer the leverage necessary to negotiate with international partners in a manner conducive to generating the best results. If properly harnessed, the global policy reframe toward an energy security paradigm offers a way for African countries to build out their energy infrastructure and transform their economies.