<\/p>\n
Convener of the CEIIF, Chiboni Evans, told Channel Africa on Tuesday that discussions at the forum have shown that funding is available, but many projects fail to attract investment because they are not adequately prepared for financing. “We have delegates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana and Zambia all presenting projects and engaging directly with financial institutions to understand how best to ensure that projects get financed,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Evans, one of the key messages from the forum is that project preparation remains a major challenge across the continent. “The issue is there is sufficient funding. The challenge is how the projects are packaged to make them bankable,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Evans said institutions such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) are working with project developers to improve project preparation and ensure proposals meet investment requirements. “The DBSA explained that they have a project preparation team that will assist to make sure projects are bankable and investable,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The forum also examined Africa’s growing energy needs and the challenge of balancing renewable energy investment with the need for reliable baseload electricity to support industrialisation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Evans said coal and nuclear energy formed part of discussions around Africa’s future energy mix. “One of the key thematic areas is the case for coal and the other one is the case for nuclear,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Evans pointed to Zambia’s Maamba coal-fired power station as an example of how coal can be used while complying with environmental obligations. “So coal, for instance, is not often seen as a clean technology in terms of generating power, but we’ve seen in places like Zambia where they’ve now gone up to 600 megawatts at the Maamba coal facility while meeting climate change obligations,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Evans also highlighted the role nuclear power could play in strengthening Africa’s baseload generation capacity. “How do we as Africa begin to include nuclear in our energy mix?” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The forum is also exploring ways to ensure energy development supports Africa’s industrialisation agenda while meeting environmental commitments.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Evans said the success of the gathering would ultimately be measured by how many projects secure investment following the discussions. “When you call me next year, hopefully we’ll have this discussion, and I’ll be able to tell you exactly how many projects have been invested in and where we’re going with those,” Evans said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43006,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-43005","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Africa's infrastructure and energy financing gap took centre stage in Johannesburg, South Africa (SA) as policymakers, investors and industry leaders gathered this week for the Continental Energy and Infrastructure Investment Forum (CEIIF) to explore ways of funding projects critical to economic growth, industrialisation and regional integration.","published_date":"","news_description":"Africa's infrastructure and energy financing gap took centre stage in Johannesburg, South Africa (SA) as policymakers, investors and industry leaders gathered this week for the Continental Energy and Infrastructure Investment Forum (CEIIF) to explore ways of funding projects critical to economic growth, industrialisation and regional integration.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43007,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43005\/revisions\/43007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}