3rd Annual Workshop on Advancing SEforALL Country Action in Africa

2015 has been a transformative year for the SEforALL initiative at the global and at the country level. The Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 were adopted by the UN General Assembly in September including goal n.7 on energy as strongly advocated by the SEforALL initiative. The initiative also underwent institutional and leadership changes, with the creation of the SEforALL Partnership as an international not-for-profit organization and the appointment of a new CEO and SRSG. In Africa, there is continued strong support for the Sustainable Energy for All initiative amongst African countries, African institutions, development partners, private sector and civil society. New international initiatives are being conceived in connection with SEforALL or pursuing similar objectives, to cite a few: the New Deal on Energy for Africa put forward by the President Adesina of the AfDB, the G20 Energy Access Action Plan for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, the African Energy Leaders Group. Major donor initiatives have been launched or scaled up, like Power Africa and ElectriFI, and commitments for the energy sector have grown substantially in the last years, also as a result of the renewed focus on energy that SEforALL was able to ignite. Private sector investments are also increasing and IPPs and PPPs are being developed throughout the continent. Objectives of the workshop The workshop comes at a critical moment for the advancement of SEforALL in Africa taking stock of the progress made to date in relation to SEforALL Action Agendas and Investment Prospectuses and focusing on catalyzing support towards implementation. The workshop intends to accelerate the country action process by increasing coherence, consistency and coordination of partners. Specifically, the workshop has two principal objectives, respectively:

1. Discuss how SEforALL can facilitate a coordinated follow-up to AAs/IPs specifically regarding the mobilization of required investments and technical assistance and the forging of the required public-private partnerships;
2. Discuss how SEforALL can facilitate the coordination of the many energy initiatives in Africa pursuing similar objectives thereby increasing overall effectiveness.