Africa’s Green Economy Summit 2025

Africa’s Green Economy Summit (AGES) took place in Cape Town from 19 to 21 February 2025. Now three years old, the yearly Summit brings together governments, private sector stakeholders, and investors to drive forward funding for Africa’s green and just transition.

The theme of AGES 2025 was “Building a climate resilient Africa: Catalysing investment and innovation in the green and blue economies”.

Throughout the Summit, nearly 60 investor-ready projects were pitched across two stages to an audience of private investors.

These included Vlinder’s initiative to plant 4.2 million mangrove trees in Kenya, simultaneously tackling climate change, empowering biodiversity, and supporting local communities.

AGES 2025’s impressive list of institutional and private sector backers included: Sanlam Investments, the African Union, the African Development Bank, DBSA, and Standard Bank.

A reoccurring theme across AGES 2025’s pitching stages and its broader discussion programme was the urgent need for more private investment in Africa’s green transition.

As Climate Policy Initiative’s Global Managing Director, Barbara Buchner explained, Africa receives less than a quarter of the sustainable finance it needs. Only 18% of this, she added during her keynote address, comes from the private sector.

As the one non-negotiable requirement to reaching net zero, renewable energy was, unsurprising, one of six core sectors under the spotlight at AGES 2025. The diverse clean energy projects pitched throughout the three days, included community solar, renewable hydrogen, and sustainable aviation fuel.

When it comes to renewable energy, Africa’s rich ecosystems are ripe for development, particularly in the areas of solar, wind, and hydro. The African Energy Chamber predicts 65% of Africa’s domestic energy capacity will come from renewable sources by 2035 – rising to 95% by 2050. Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, and South Africa are among the nations tipped as renewable energy powerhouses of the future. Djibouti is aiming to run on 100% clean energy by 2035, through ambition investments in wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy.

At the same time, it is clear more private sector investment is needed to make these projections a reality.

COP29 saw the target sum for developed nations’ annual funding to developing nations increase from $100 to $300 billion by 2035. By most estimations, this still leaves a significant shortfall on the estimated cost of bringing these countries in line with Paris Agreement targets. UNCTAD, for example, put the figure at around $1.1 trillion, rising to around $1.8 trillion by 2030.

Over half of sub-Saharan Africa’s population currently has no access to electricity. As well as diminishing their quality of life, this often leaves communities relying on polluting cooking and heating methods, such as burning dung or charcoal. In other nations, like South Africa, fossil fuels have traditionally dominated the energy mix.

As its population grows, Africa needs the right kind of investment to ensure its grids are upscaled using clean energy sources, rather than fossil fuels. Innovative, private sector solutions might just hold the key to unlocking Africa’s true green power potential.

As a final thought, the benefits of technology for education and innovation increasingly rely upon energy for computing and information services. Without access to energy there is no access to information and transformative technology, further widening the global inequalities.