• Many African energy plans rely heavily on foreign expertise, limiting local autonomy.

• New training programs aim to build African skills in energy planning and data analysis.

• Lack of in-house capacity slows independent policy development and widens donor influence.

African countries face major challenges in their energy transition as they continue to depend on foreign help to design national energy strategies. Although governments pledge to pursue a just and fair energy transition, they often outsource critical planning to external partners.

The launch of the "Blended Executive Program on Africa's Just Energy Transition 2025" on July 15 highlights this skills gap. The program targets young African academics and civil servants, combining online courses and in-person sessions in Italy. Supported by Italian Higher Education with Africa, it aims to build local expertise in energy planning, open-source modeling, and data analysis across eight African nations. These countries still rely heavily on foreign partners for policy development.

Zambia’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) illustrates this trend. The country developed the IRP with assistance from the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GIZ) under the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) project. Similarly, Senegal’s Action Plan for Universal Access to Electricity came from technical support by the World Bank through its Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). Both programs align with Sustainable Development Goal 7 to ensure affordable and clean energy.

A 2023 study by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) confirms that most African countries lack the technical capacity to create coherent, long-term energy strategies on their own. This skills deficit hinders their ability to craft independent policies by limiting expertise in modeling, planning, and data processing.

Foreign dependency often serves as a barrier to autonomy since donors frequently require outside intervention as a funding condition. Although capacity-building efforts exist in about ten Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries, much of the continent still misses out. The Europe-Africa Platform for Sustainable Energy Investments warns that weak local ownership delays sustainable energy progress.

This article was initially published in French by Abdel-Latif Boureima

Edited in English by Ange Jason Quenum