Dakar, Feb 16 (APS) – The Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Aïssatou Sophie Gladima, recommends strengthening inter-African expertise in the oil sector, for the efficient exploitation of oil and gas resources with a view to sustainable growth.
“I call on all companies” to invest “more for the development of the sector and for a strengthening of inter-African expertise through an ideal framework, with a view to sustainable growth” , she said.
Ms. Aïssatou Sophie Gladima spoke on Wednesday at the 2022 edition of the African Forum on Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development, which is being held in Dakar.
“Faced with the continental challenge of access to energy, Africa must exploit all its available resources effectively and efficiently,” said Ms. Gladima, in the presence of the President of the Federation of Senegalese Companies in electricity (FESELEC), Mor Kassé.
The Minister of Petroleum and Energy underlined, in the context of the energy transition, the “divergence of views” between the developed countries and the African continent, which concerns “the way to achieve the fight against climate change” .
Africa, she said, “is resolutely committed” to combating climate change, especially since the continent is one of the areas of the world “most vulnerable to its effects”.
“However, being responsible for only 3% of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the world, it cannot bear too much the burden of the consequences of economic developments in other regions, even less if this burden prevents it from develop like the others,” she notes.
“The ladder that has served other continents to develop must not be taken away when Africa takes it!”, she argues, adding that the continent needs to call on all its resources for this.
Especially since the continent can count on “an immense energy potential, both renewable (solar, wind) and non-renewable, namely hydrocarbons, uranium (…)”.
“For a country like Senegal, which has about 32 TCF of natural gas, universal access and economic emergence necessarily go through the development of our gas projects, through the pursuit of our gas-to-power strategy ( ..),” she added.
“The same goes for all the other countries on the continent, producers of fossil fuels”, underlines the Minister of Petroleum and Energy.
In this dynamic, she mentioned “the alert launched at every opportunity” by the Head of State, Macky Sall, current President of the African Union, “for a just, equitable and inclusive energy transition”.
She also recalled the position of the Senegalese president according to which “a too rapid and above all undifferentiated energy transition would be a significant risk of failure to achieve the development and stability objectives of the continent”.
“It is therefore essential that through structures” such as the Confederation of African Electricity (CAFELEC) or the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO), the African energy sector can strengthen its “intrinsic capacities”, a- he advocated.
“That is to say, to have its technology, to finance its projects, to design and develop the infrastructures necessary for the continent for its own economic development”, explained Ms. Gladima.