Africa

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Bioenergy > Regions > Africa

This page provides information on biofuels and bioenergy in Africa, including details on specific countries.

• Africa has a huge potential for bioenergy, but also faces some of the greatest challenges for sustainability. Bioenergy and biofuels can pose both solutions and challenges to problems of poverty, deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss and other issues.

Africa-wide activities

Jatropha Nursery in Kaffrine, Senegal

• ProBEC - Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation in Southern Africa - ProBEC, implemented by the German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) since 1998, works in several SADC countries (Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to promote "Integrated approaches to Biomass Energy Conservation (BEC)" to "offer ways to tackle fuel shortages, reduce the burden of fuel collection and preparation, and reduce exposure to indoor air pollution.[1]

Sub-regions / Countries

Click the country names to see pages about specific countries. (Blue links indicate pages that exist in the wiki; red links indicate pages that do not exist yet.)

• Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe
• East Africa: Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda
• North Africa: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia
• Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe
• West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote D'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

Regional activities

Western lowland gorillas are only found in the remaining equatorial rainforests of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the Republic of Congo. Forest clearing for subsistence agriculture, commercial logging, civil unrest and the expanding bushmeat trade threaten the gorillas' habitat and survival. REDD could propose economic incentives for avoiding deforestation and degradation of tropical forests in developing countries where these gorillas are found.

• ProBEC - Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation in Southern Africa - ProBEC, implemented by the German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) since 1998, works in several SADC countries (Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to promote "Integrated approaches to Biomass Energy Conservation (BEC)" to "offer ways to tackle fuel shortages, reduce the burden of fuel collection and preparation, and reduce exposure to indoor air pollution.[2]

• Inaugural African Jatropha Roundtable. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 17-18 September 2008.

News from Africa

Also see news and specific country pages.

2010

• Madagascar’s Political Chaos Threatens Conservation Gains, 4 January 2010 by Yale Environment 360: "Since the government's collapse after a coup last March, Madagascar's rainforests have been plundered for their precious wood and unique wildlife. But now there are a few encouraging signs, as officials promise a crackdown on illegal logging and ecotourists begin to return to the island."
  • "Madagascar will need more than admonishments from rich countries and stricter enforcement of trade regulations to restore its once-admired protected areas management system. It needs international support and domestic political will to ensure a future for ecotourism and its spectacular wildlife."

• From palm oil to cotton, Benin now shifts to rice, 4 January 2010 by Daily Nation: "Known for its palm oil and cotton production, Benin’s agriculture sector wants to become known for high-quality rice and to quit importing rice by 2011, according to the government."
  • "FAO estimates Benin is using 8 per cent of available land for rice cultivation and could save $55 million and cover 70 per cent of domestic demand if it invested more in rice production."
  • "West African rice imports reached six million tonnes in 2001 and are likely to rise to 11 million by 2010, according to FAO."

2009

• Redd in Africa: 'how we can earn money from air by harvesting carbon', 5 October 2009 by guardian.co.uk: "Kenyan ranch shows how UN scheme could protect forests that absorb CO2 and earn billions of dollars for their owners."
  • "The carbon saved would be traded on the growing voluntary carbon market and after 2012 when the next round of the Kyoto treaty becomes affective, Rukinga could qualify as an official Kenyan government Redd scheme, attracting public money from Britain and other rich countries seeking to offset emissions they have legally committed to cut."

• Africa's burning charcoal problem, 25 September 2009 by BBC: "[A]ccording to the Tanzania Association of Oil Marketing Companies, 20,000 bags of charcoal enter the capital Dar es Salaam every 24 hours....But the impact of this unregulated...trade is chilling."
  • "Aid agency Christian Aid estimates that 182 million people in Africa are at risk of dying as a consequence of climate change by the end of the century....One adaptation option for Africa is to keep her forests standing so that they provide essential environmental services such as carbon sinks".
  • "But Africa has not been very good at this....According to the UN the continent is losing forest twice as fast as the rest of the world."
  • "Wood and its by-product charcoal are, unless radical steps are taken, likely to remain the primary energy source for decades....Additionally, charcoal is a lucrative business..."[3]

• Biofuels Information Plan Launched in West Africa , 23 June 2009 by Voice of America: "The environmental group Wetlands International has joined forces with the organization Action Aid and 30 Senegal-based groups to ensure that communities in West Africa are aware of the impact of biofuel development programs."
  • "The initiative will inform rural and urban communities about the issues surrounding biofuels, including food security, energy supply and environmental sustainability."[4]

• Why Ghana is attracting investments in biofuels, 31 January 2009 by Ghana Business News: "Ghana has become a major centre of attraction for the cultivation of biofuels in Africa for a number of reasons," including agricultural productivity, political stability and labor costs.
  • "Currently, the country features prominently on the radar of alternative energy interests, especially in the cultivation of the non-food plant jatropha for the production of biofuels."
  • "[C]ompanies from Brazil, Italy, Norway, Israel, China, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and India" have invested in projects in "the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern and the Northern regions of Ghana," mainly for jatropha.
  • "While its supporters argue that [jatropha] can be grown on semi-arid land and so poses less of a threat to food output than other biofuel feedstocks such as grains and vegetable oils, its opponents argue that investors are taking away productive agriculture land from poor local farmers for the purpose."
  • "Currently, there is an ongoing debate, accusations and counter-accusations of land grabbing between NGOs, Action Aid and FoodSPAN on one hand and Rural Consult, a consultancy firm on biofuels on the other."[5]

• Can "green charcoal" help save the trees?, 20 April 2009 by IRIN: "An environmental NGO in northern Senegal is about to go to market with 'green charcoal' – a household fuel produced from agricultural waste materials to replace wood and charcoal in cooking stoves."
  • "The 'green charcoal' is produced by compressing agricultural waste, like the invasive typha weed, into briquets and then carbonising them using a machine. The product has the look and feel of traditional charcoal and burns similarly."
  • "'The technology is efficient, effective and economical because we can produce a substitute for charcoal at half the price,' Guy Reinaud, director of Pro Natura International, the French NGO that has partnered with the Senegalese government on the green charcoal project."
  • "ProNatura will soon start a project in Mali, transforming cotton stems into green charcoal, and plans similar projects in Niger, Madagascar, China, India and Brazil."[6]

• Ethanol Project: Global Recognition for Nigeria, 1 January 2009 by THISDAY:
  • "There is no doubt that Nigeria is blazing the trail in renewable energy sector, which ethanol is the final product. The initiative is to stem the effect of global warming, which has become a matter of serious concern dominating local and foreign discourse. Interestingly, a Nigerian company is already making waves in this important sector, which is big business in developed countries of the world."
  • "The Global Biofuels Limited, the first biofuels refinery in Nigeria, endorsed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), is the company facilitating biofuels production in Nigeria. The company’s investments in ethanol projects have earned Nigeria international recognition."

Endangered leopard in Botswana's Okavango Delta. The Okavango is one of the world's largest inland deltas, supports an astounding array of wildlife, and could be highly vulnerable to the effects of global climate change.

2008

Events

2010:

• 24-26 February 2010, Sandton Convention Centre, South Africa: Energy 2010 - Solutions for Africa. (Themes: Africa, markets, policy, technology)

2009:

• 23-24 March 2009, Nairobi, Kenya: East Africa Stakeholder Outreach Meeting for the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels. (Themes: Africa, biofuels, standards, sustainability)

• 6-7 October 2009, Accra, Ghana: Katoomba XV - Ghana: Payments for Ecosystem Services in West Africa (and looking forward to Central Africa) (Themes: REDD, local peoples, ecosystem services, West Africa, Central Africa, developing countries, forests)

Publications

Women and girls in parts of developing countries spend many hours collecting wood for cooking in the home. (Flickr Creative Commons image by Genocide Intervention Network).

See books, reports, scientific papers, position papers and websites for additional useful resources.

• Sustainable Bioenergy Report in UEMOA Member Countries October 2008 report by United Nations Foundation, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the Energy and Security Group. Main findings include that bioenergy can provide significant economic and environmental opportunities for rural areas in West Africa.

• Brazil - UK - Africa: Partnership on Bioethanol Scoping Study - British Government, Dept. of Trade and Industry: , s.d. July 2006.

• Turning Food Into Fuel: GM Drought Tolerant Soybean And Its Use In The Production Of Biodiesel African Centre for Biosafety, 10 November 2006.

• Position on the Use of Agrofuels in Africa (PDF file) from The Conservation, Policy, Education and Science Committee of the Society for Conservation Biology, Africa section. "The purpose of this position paper is to explore the means of sustaining both humans and wildlife while producing agro-fuels as an alternative energy source in sub-Saharan Africa."

Information sources

• BioPact

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