 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here for the second press conference of the afternoon here on the day three of the World Economic Forum annual meeting 2015. We've just actually heard a few minutes ago about an exciting initiative in Latin America regarding bridging the skills and innovation gap. This conference again has a very much a regional flavour, I'm delighted to be joined by a panel here to launch the African Energy Leaders Group. It's an initiative launched here today at the World Economic Forum, bringing together leaders with the mission of building public private partnerships, leveraging political support and mobilising funds for sustainable energy and development on the continent. Now I'm reliably informed this basically takes the form of three pillars, driving universal access, driving efficiency and driving renewables. But I'm not the expert here, I'm going to hand over to my panel to tell us some more. First speaker I'm delighted to be joined by Candid Kala-Yumkala who is the Under-Secretary General and Special Representative of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All based in Vienna. Also on the Global Agenda Council on Future of Electricity, Sir. Thank you very much. We feel honoured to say that on behalf of the Secretary General and President of the World Bank, both of whom are the chairs and leaders of sustainable energy for all, that this afternoon we're joined by African leaders to launch the African Energy Leaders Group. Why do we need such a group? Africa has about 620 million people without electricity. By 2050 we're adding another billion people to that group. This morning in one of the panels, Prime Minister Duncan of Côte d'Ivoire said that normally they say that water brings life, but he also added energy drives growth and prosperity. So to power Africa, to provide jobs and opportunity and economic transformation, for its 2.5 billion people estimated to live there, by 2050 we need massive investments in expanding its energy generation capacity and making energy accessible and affordable to its citizens. This African Energy Leaders Group has that in mind. How do we bring the public and the private sector together to create regional markets for large transformative energy projects using all of Africa's energy resources? We emphasise all of Africa's energy resources because it is also true that in the last five years 30% of the new oil and gas discoveries were in that continent. So this platform is to create that public-private partnership with African leaders sitting next to some of Africa's most formidable captains of business. Mr. Aliko Dangute and Mr. Otoni Olumelu, Mr. Kabaruka with global leaders like Prime Minister Duncan and also President Mahama who will be co-chairing this group to bring all the private sector players into the energy sector but also promote market integration. Africa's energy needs will not be met unless we begin to talk more seriously about interconnectivity between countries and also bigger regional projects, some of which have been designed. So one of the things we will do immediately with this group is to put in front of them some of the projects that have been designed by the African Development Bank and also the power pools to see how in fact we can begin to look at execution and implementation of those but bringing in foreign private investment and technology to partner with African businesses to generate more power and expand Africa's energy markets. This is the frame we have. We're very pleased that we could partner with the World Economic Forum. I've been serving on their different global agenda councils for Africa, the future of Africa and now the future of electricity and we believe there is a convergence here to achieve sustainable development in Africa. It cannot be done without expanding its power base. Thank you. And the police, my next speaker is Daniel Cablan Duncan, the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire. Please give us your views as a head of government on the meaning of the significance of this group. Well, I must say that what Mr. Imkala said is really important for all of us. Capacity is at the base of development anywhere but mainly in Africa. Well, as far as Côte d'Ivoire is concerned, we have our production capacity now is 1,650 megawatt. And this year we want to reach 2,000 megawatt. And by 2020 we want to reach 4,000 megawatt, we want to double the capacity. So that's a big challenge, of course, for all of us. And well, our aim is that the private sector should be the engine of building the thermal power plant and also the dams to give the electricity in the country. Well, for the time being we have 70% of the electricity come from using the gas we produce offshore and 30% by hydroelectric dam. But by 2020 we want to change to have 60% by hydroelectric dam. And let's say 30% by natural gas. And 10% by less renewable energy, mainly biomass, solar, and so on. So that's a big challenge for us. And for the time being the coverage of the country in electricity is 45%. But the access of population is 80%. So we want that by 2020 we can cover all the needs of the country. So that's needed to have more plants. And we want, if you want the private sector to be the engine, we have to change the framework, the regulatory framework, so that they can be interested in investing in the sector of energy in Côte d'Ivoire. And we are doing that. And we hope that we can go on producing electricity not only for Côte d'Ivoire, but also maybe you don't know, you supply electricity to Ghana, to Benin, and also in the north to Buginefaso and Mali. And finally, I would say that we have been asked to supply electricity on the western part of Côte d'Ivoire to Liberia, and also to Guinea-Conakry, and also to Sierra Leone. So we are a kind of hub in the western African powerful. So that's also a challenge to work not only for Côte d'Ivoire, but also for the subdivision. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd just like to know, for our third speaker, turn to Tony Alamelu, who's the founder of the Tony Alamelu Foundation in Nigeria. We've been hearing about the importance of the private sector. So, sir, perhaps you could give us your thoughts on this initiative and the role that you can play and your peers in the private sector. This is a very good initiative, and I'd like to commend our brother, the undersecretary, Mr. Sustainable Energy, Yom Kela, for spreading to a large extent all of these efforts. I believe he must have told us or said to share with you all the power deficiencies in Africa. The issue to me is we should begin to move to execution. And right here, the governance level of this initiative body. We have investors, we have policymakers, and we also have financiers. So the combination of these three stakeholders will make this work very well. I speak here now as an investor in the power sector, and we produce currently about 610 megawatts of electricity. We intend to move it to 1,000 quickly, 6,750 by end of March, and 1,000 bodies in the first century Nigeria. That cannot even move any needle at all. So this combination of this kind of coalition will help us increase, tap into the original opportunities that we have and see how the investors and policymakers and finance are working together this can achieve our objective. Policymakers are very important in the equation, and because we need to harmonize policies across the most of the regions, in this case it was Afghan region, I believe that the political leadership will be. We have to provide these policies that will enable the private sector to take advantage of the opportunities that exist. We have the natural endowment that can help us achieve to a larger extent the signal part of what we need. At the same time, we have the market for this. So we have almost everything it takes to work. We should do so, and we also will be calling on international partners, private sector partners as well as people in the development world to put resources together so that we can achieve significant improvement in access to electricity across the sub-region. Fantastic. I can see the stakeholder sets coming together with it. The policymakers lining up, we've got the private enterprise lining up now, and I think we're turning it as Tony Melle Melle said to the financiers. So delighted, Donald Khabarouka, to be able to ask you as President of the African Development Bank what your views are on this initiative and how exactly and whether you'll be able to get behind the scheme. Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to thank the World Economic Forum for getting this together and the county for your leadership. I want to thank the political leaders and business leaders who have come together to get this thing done. Obviously, a few things I want to say. Number one, at this moment, every single Afghan country is experiencing energy shortages and power outages. And that is costing the continent 2% of the GDP. In fact, an African leader says that we are a continent of miracles. If we are growing at 5% without enough electricity, think of what we could do if we had enough electricity. That is 2% lost. Number two, the African Development Bank does about $5 billion of infrastructure per year. Half of that is into energy, both in the public side and the private sector side. So we are aware of the constraints we have to overcome, both in the public domain and to provide incentives to the private sector. And so I do think this advocacy group will help us to resolve the issues around a couple of things. There's energy availability, but there's also energy access. Millions of Africans, even when energy is available, do not have access to it. There are millions of Africans who see power lines going above them, so energy is available, but they have no access. So that we have to resolve. There is energy sustainability, this clean energy, the kind of stuff we're discussing here. There's energy efficiency to ensure that we have the maximum. I also expect the group to play a big advocacy role on creating energy markets in Africa. It is not possible for our individual 54 countries to have energy security from their own domestic resources. We have to create viable regional markets for power, and that is possible. It is transborder and therefore more complicated. It requires a lot of policy reforms internally and regionally, and I think this group will be a powerful advocate for that. And finally, I want to say that for the policy reforms needed to attract energy investments, Africa has made a lot of progress. I'm really impressed by progress in places like Kenya, like Nigeria, like Ghana, there are challenges in some other countries. And these challenges are around public utilities and the accounting for subsidies. And number two, around the fact of ensuring that the regulators are independent in law and in fact. So they're not simply independent in law, but when it comes to actually dispute resolution, they do not show that independence. These are issues for which governments, international organizations, and private sector, we have to work together. So we shall be hosting this initiative at the bank, alongside many other initiatives that we do. And I myself am a member. So I want to commend the leaders who have come together for this and you can count on our partnership. I'm just going to open the floor for questions anybody has any. OK, so we... Sir, can I have a microphone at the front row please? Could you give us your name and your ad-libs please? Hi, Omar Benyatta from African Business Magazine. Two questions if it's possible. First of all, how will the initiative work exactly? So you're looking at creating some regional champions who are going to bring in the rest of the regional community into this initiative and drive investment in the energy sector, is that right? And the second question is... Mattal, yesterday, he raised the issue of currency risk, quoting Ghana, Zambia, and Malawi. So recently we saw in Nigeria privatization of the power sector and the number of companies taking on debt in US dollar denominated debt to invest in the energy sector. Then recently with the fall of the price of oil, we've seen a devaluation of 10% of the Naira, which means that they're now collecting the Naira but servicing the debt in US dollars. So how do you deal with such risks, especially when you're talking about big investments in the energy sector? Thank you. Can I take the second one? Sure. Maybe Donald, maybe you'd have some ideas on currency thoughts. So tell you you go to the leaders. Okay, so in Nigeria, I like to say that it's not quite the way you presented it. And again, it speaks to the essence of the policy reform we're talking about, especially progressive policy reforms. I am an investor in the power space. The purchase agreement, the conversion rate for payment is indexed to prevailing foreign exchange rate. So there's an inbuilt mechanism that automatically adjusts for what you just presented. In Nigeria, there's about 8% to 10% devaluation or depreciation of currency. So that automatically will be fattened into the pricing mechanism that has been put in place. But for me, the key point to stress here again is what we've been saying about policy reform, policy policy reform that is as robust as possible and also one that recognizes what helps to the risk, especially this sector for now that we're trying to encourage. I tell you what happened in Nigeria when doing the liberalization of the telecommunication space. The companies that invested in telecommunication space then were giving tax holiday of, I think, five or 10 years, maybe about seven, I'm not so sure of the time, but over five years, maybe seven years. And this encouraged them to invest more massively in that space. In the power sector also, I think we have 15 years tax holiday. So policies like this also help. And as investors, you can plan long-term. You know what to anticipate. So I would encourage Bulkulidas to be slightly more supportive of this sector at this initial stage that we're trying to attract investment into this space. Thank you. If I may take the first one. We're setting up the African Energy Leaders Group in sub-regions. So essentially, you see part of the West Africa Africa Energy Leaders Group here to be chaired by President Watara and also President Mahama. Already, we're looking at existing projects that had been defined before. Some of them, the pre-feasibility studies and feasibility studies funded by the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and others. And we're asking the question, how come we are not able to execute them? Is it a public policy problem? Is it a finance problem? How do we remove those barriers? And then you have presidents sitting across the table to make deals, literally. It makes sense for President Jonathan of Nigeria talking about a gas deal with President Watara and also President Mahama of Ghana, because they already have a pipeline. But the question is, how come we don't have enough gas? In a similar sense, we've spoken to leaders in East Africa, President Kagami, President Kikweta, and others to do a similar group. Because, as you know, if you take East Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania probably have as much gas as Kuwait. But I know everybody's building LNG plants to ship it out to Asia. We want some of that power to be used to create growth and energy access in East Africa. And these leaders are also interested in getting together to look at how they can begin to talk about interconnection. Some of the work that Donald Kabaruka and others have laid the foundation for. But to make those work and give confidence to people like Tonya Lumelu and others to invest, you need the deep sector reforms that are guaranteed to be there for some time. Because these are risky investments. And of course, you need the banks to do the de-risking instruments to deal with some of the risks that you have mentioned, whether it's exchange rates or in fact, off-taker risks and other risks we see in major infrastructure projects. So as Mr. Lumelu said, it's practical. We want transactions. We want investments, not a forum. Beyond the forum, we'll get ideas. But also now, how do we make some of these projects really implementable? Mr. Kabaruka. Could I also say that we're not starting from Tabula Rasa, who have some very good examples of where things of this nature have worked very well. One of them is in my neighbor's country, who have a project called Azito. Azito several phases, which has worked extremely well. Even in the days when Ecuador was having a political crisis, the performance of this particular project was outstanding because the framework is right. And so we're trying to also to get best practices and bring them to scale. Because countries are made a little progress, others less progress. Secondly, as Tony says, wherever is the bank to roll out different types of guarantee instruments? In the case of Nigeria and Kenya, we have provided the partial guarantees, which is making this privatisation of the past sector from now possible. And I hope to see more cases coming up. And so this group will prepare that role and bring to scale best practices. Well, just a few words. Well, Côte d'Ivoire have an increase in GDP by 9% over the three past years. The consumption electricity grew by, let's say, 15%. So that's the challenge. How to meet the demand? Not only for Côte d'Ivoire, because I mentioned that we export electricity, the subversion. Because out of the 15% or 17%, it depends on the year, 10% have local needs. And the other for the surrounding country. So as the increase in GDP in the other countries is higher and higher, we need to produce more electricity. And that's a big challenge for all of us. But as I mentioned earlier, as we have changed the regulatory framework, the private sector feel confidence to invest in Côte d'Ivoire. And President Kaberuka mentioned Asito. I was Prime Minister at that time when we launched it. It was a BOT. And at that time, people don't believe that we have the kinds of BOT in Africa and mainly in Côte d'Ivoire. It was at that time 165 megawatt power plant. Now we are going to 450 megawatt. So I think that if you have the regulatory framework, if the consumption is on the ground, there is no problem. And we should have the original approach of the problem. And that's the reason why Mr. Yumtela have said that we should be round the table, not only with the government, but also the private sector to discuss and to find means and way to achieve the goal for Africa. Because as we have the revolution in the cellular system, the mobile phone, which we will have, we also eat in the electricity side. Our Lord, and by saying, for instance, in Côte d'Ivoire, while in the early 90s, there was no mobile phone in Côte d'Ivoire, now we have 20 million cellular phones, 20 million out of 23 million people. So that's a big jump. So I think we have the same thing as far as electricity is concerned. Thank you. Now, we're a Swiss organization that prides itself on timing, but I do want to just ask one very quick question to each of the panelists. We've talked about a lot of different ideas, increasing the regional nature of markets, regulatory reform, in access to international technology, public-private partnerships. I'd like each of you just very succinctly to outline one key priority if you had to choose one for 2015. Maybe we'll start with Mr. Elamelu at the end and work our way back here. I think for me it's policy, policy, policy. You know, investors in this space are rational. And the risks here are quite huge. The capital requirement equally very huge. So you want to, if you want to invest in this space, you want to first survey the environment beyond economics, you know, the policy stability and possibility of rules and the nature of the regulatory framework. And the person as the president of the world, I forgot to develop that, but that's a tradition. President, I forgot to develop what I said. As he said, you know, it should be right in law and in spirit. So for me, if the right policies are in place, investors will invest, financiers will be encouraged to invest, and regional pooling of resources will be there, the common market will be there. Everything, to a large extent, I think policy is very important. So for me, I would give that, I think it's more significant. Donald, if you could achieve one thing in 2015. OK. Now, narrowing down on that. I go back to what Christine Lagarde was saying this week. Taking advantage of the lower oil prices to remove or at least reduce significantly the subsidies. But that is what will make it possible, utility reforms. And that is the elephant in the room. So it was difficult to reform utilities when oil prices are that high, stratospheric levels. But with oil prices falling, being moderate, it is a time to reform the subsidies everywhere. And that would make it easy to have public utilities that are financially viable. You know, let me end this by saying, one of us who are young were, you know, activists. And I remember we used to go around saying, quoting Lenin, saying that communism was socialism plus electricity. That's what I said in those days. It is so vital that we get this thing right now. And I cannot imagine a time to reform the power sector as now in our process at $40 a barrel. Mr. Prime Minister. Well, I think as far we are concerned, the main challenges will be to supply electricity to villages, not only to the towns and to the industries. Our plan is that by 2020, all the villages who have more than 500 people living there, inhabitants, should have electricity. And well, you can only do it if you have first the potential, the production. But also, if the electricity price is acceptable, not too expensive, and we have decided, and we are trying to implement it in the ground, the subscribers of electricity, they used to pay $400 to describe electricity. Now they have to pay $2 only, because Mr. Ymkela spoke about access to electricity. You can do it if that's affordable for the people. So they will pay it on 10 years rather than to pay it just when they have this subscription on the ground. So that's one of the challenges for the future. Thank you. Mr. Under Secretary General. Well, my dream is that in 2015, with my colleagues in the Africa Future of Energy Group, that when we meet in South Africa in June, that in fact this group can have a B2B business to business discussion in South Africa with some partners for two out of the 11 projects we've identified. And of course, we now have an offer from the Turkish presidency of the G20 that in September we go back there with the G20 looking at even bigger projects that this group would have considered. So it is very practical. So I'm giving ourselves World Economic Forum and the AELG a timetable that we will need to see some evidence that we can move at least one or two of these projects going forward. Let me just make a pitch for Aliko Dangute. He was going to be with us. But as you know, he's also dealing with food security and other things. So he was going to come late for this. But just to say that as a manufacturer, he's very committed to this initiative. He has seen what the cost of energy does to competitiveness and industrialization. So that's why with Tony and Lou Melu, they are founders of this group. And they're just to say that we've closed the loop very nicely with some of these. And they are both trying to bring in other African businessmen and bankers into this group to make it workable. It's an African-owned initiative. And I want to thank my big brothers here and Mr. Prime Minister for giving us the inspiration to take this forward. Thank you. Thanks for mentioning it. This conference is now closed. Thank you for joining us here today. And thank you to our audience watching this online.