Energy goes beyond lights

At the just-ended Fifa World Cup finals, history has been  made. Spain was crowned world champions for a second time. Cape Verde, in their first ever World Cup appearance, held Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia to storm into the knockouts. Morocco sent the Netherlands packing and Paraguay kicked Germany out. Lionel Messi, a soccer icon of our generation, is probably bowing out with fireworks: eight goals, including a hattrick while French marksman Kylian Mbappe became the all-time top goalscorer in knockout-stages with 10 goals. 

What a tournament we are witnessing. Yet, not everyone watched history being made.

Conrad Shaba, a diehard soccer fan on the outskirts of Lilongwe, sits in the dark. His home has no electricity. And with matches kicking off at odd hours, bars and clubs were closed, leaving him shut out of the World Cup he loves.

 Over half a billion people in the Global South missed out too because they have no electricity. 

Sub-Saharan countries such as Malawi, South Sudan, Burundi and Chad have the world’s lowest electrification rates with only one in 10 people accessing grid power.

Nigeria, the region’s second biggest economy, has nearly 90 million people powerless followed by the naturally rich Democratic Republic of Congo with 80 million.

Ironically, Africa holds immense energy potential and yet remains in the dark with little or no meaningful investment in many countries to light up households.

 The continent spends on average 54 percent of its revenues annually in servicing public debt, a majority of which is owed to the Northern Creditors.

Energy generation is among the essential public goods the continent has sacrificed to service unfair and illegitimate debt.

Take for instance the underutilised colossal hydroelectric opportunities in DRC, Ethiopia, and Zambia that could power millions.

The eleven countries along the East African Rift Valley have geothermal reserves like Kenya’s waiting to be tapped. And abundant natural gas in Tanzania, Nigeria, Algeria and Mozambique could light up the continent if harnessed.

Sub-Sahara holds 60 percent of the world’s best solar resources, but accounts for only three of global electricity generation.

So the real question is not whether the region has the potential. It clearly does. The question is why it remains in the dark and what it will take to fix the crisis throttling growth and keeping millions powerless.

Energy goes beyond lights. It sparks growth, powers factories, drives commerce, aids production and lifts human development. Access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy is a prerequisite the region needs to industrialise, grow its economy, improve livelihoods, produce adequate food and address poverty and yawning inequalities.

With 50 to 60 percent of Africa’s workforce in agriculture and most rural families depending on it, sustainable energy access has the potential to boost yields and improve livelihoods for millions, especially women.

In the region, the classrooms are not just collapsing because children stop showing up, energy poverty is a huge contributing factor. Without electricity, attendance plummets, outcomes sink and the gap between rich and poor widens. This leads to high dropouts, low education levels, and futures locked into lower earnings.

Without reliable power, rural clinics are forced into the shadows, unable to run life‑saving devices, store vaccines or even keep the lights on. The result is delayed diagnoses, unsafe maternal and infant care, and exhausted health workers abandoning villages for cities. This is inequality in action condemning millions to second class care simply because they live on the wrong side of the power line.

Besides, over reliance on traditional fuels for cooking and heating is poisoning homes with toxic air, causing millions of premature deaths especially among women.

Poor energy access is doing far more than keeping Conrad and half a billion others from global events like the 2026 Fifa World Cup. It is chaining Africa’s progress, deepening poverty and inequalities.

This is a structural crisis baked into an unequal global system. From a rigged financial architecture to a yawning infrastructure financing gap and exploitative trade terms, the deck is stacked against sub‑Saharan Africa.

The post Energy goes beyond lights appeared first on Nation Online.