About 200 African civil society organisations have issued a strong condemnation of European manipulation and compromise of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI).
The organisations are protesting the actions of France and the European Commission, accusing them of risking the initiative and of bypassing processes including social and environmental criteria to push approval of projects, to the cost of African citizens.
The AREI was launched in 2015 in Paris during COP21 as an African-led initiative with the goal of providing at least 10 GW of new renewable energy to Africa’s peoples by 2020, and put the continent on course to add at least another 300 GW and achieve universal access to energy for all Africans by 2030.
It was supported by $10 billion in pledges for 2015-2020 by developed countries in Paris, and has been hailed as a ground-breaking effort to bring clean, affordable, and reliable energy to millions of people in a democratic, human-rights focused approach.
However African civil society groups understand that at a recent AREI Board Meeting, France and the European Commission abused their position as donors to override the views of several Africans on the AREI Board, by announcing and pushing through approval of 19 projects that were not subject to AREI evaluation criteria or social, environmental, and gender safeguards.
They did so apparently without being formal Board Members, in the face of objections by several African Board Members, and apparently without participation of the countries hosting the projects
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African CSOs Protest EU Hijack Of Renewable Energy Initiative
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