Former Director-General, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Dr Kandeh Yumkella, said investments in green energy have grown six times to over $338billion.
Yumkella who was a special guest at the launch of N1billion Solar Energy Fund for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) by the Bank of Industry (BoI) in Lagos at the weekend, advised the Federal Government not to miss out in ongoing green energy revolution. Government, he said, should encourage and invest heavily in renewable energy such as solar.
The BoI intervention is to help boost productivity in that segment of the economy. Yumkella stated that the tremendous increase in investment was due to collapse in oil price.
“In 2015, we suddenly saw the crash in oil price from over $100 per barrel to $40-45 per barrel. People thought that renewable energy will crash but that didn’t happen because in many countries, we were able to demonstrate that we can produce electricity cheaper than coal. South Africa led the way for electricity production through renewable. The same thing is happening in Dubai, Chile and China,” he added.
Yumkella a Senegalese who was also a former United Nations Under-Secretary General and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, has worked several years in Nigeria’s energy space.
He was highlighting the need for Nigeria to maximally utilise the abundant renewable energy sources such as solar. He said: “Africa has missed a couple of global revolutions. We missed the agriculture revolution, and today we cannot feed ourselves and have to import so much food.
He said: “We almost missed the digital (IT, computer) revolution. India and some Asian countries took advantage of the digital revolution. India after years of investment in basic education and computer science became a hub, companies and corporations in the United States and Europe moved their operations to India. India has programmers across the world. I praised the audacity of a company called Zinox who showed interest to assemble computers in Nigeria then because people thought it was impossible to do that in Nigeria.
“Today, we have green energy revolution. It is new and just picking up and moving very fast, which means we have to be agile and innovative, and so having a million products is part of the innovation.”
Yumkella recalled that when he worked as a UN representative in Nigeria, he saw companies in Kaduna, Aba and other places shut down for lack of energy. According to him, a study by UNIDO and World Bank carried out then showed energy accounts for a major part of cost of production. He cited a textile mill in Kano that each time power goes off,a line on the fabric under production becomes inferior.
For Africa and Nigeria to optimally benefit from the green energy revolution, he said: “Time to integrate discussions on energy and industrialization because to create the expected jobs, there must be industrialization. The only avenue to create jobs and wealth is industrialisation but you cannot do it without reliable and affordable energy.
“I fought hard in the United Nations to get SDG 7,that is my legacy within the UN. I fought for 10 years to make energy the central issue because without energy hospitals cannot run well and you cannot do proper agriculture or industrialisation.”