President Kagame is in New York City, where he attended the 10th Anniversary Columbia Global Energy Summit. The Summit, hosted by the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, brought together global leaders, policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders to work on addressing the growing climate crisis and find solutions to challenges arising from the clean energy transition.
President Kagame joined Matthew Harris, Chair of the CGEP Advisory Board for a conversation on “Balancing growth, sustainability and access to power in Africa”, discussing Rwanda and other African nations’ goal of delivering full access to electricity for all, while pursuing global sustainability goals.
Rwanda is one of the African countries that is on track to deliver full access to electricity by 2030.
During his remarks, President Kagame highlighted the necessity of energy for all in order to achieve economic growth and general well-being;
“Majority of Africans don’t have access to electricity and it is very clear that for us to see growth, to realize middle or high income status without electricity access is just not possible. Anyone would be deceiving to say there is another channel.
That’s a big problem but at the same time it’s a big opportunity in terms of; if we made the right investments, based on the proper planning that has to happen, I think we can be able to create a very big market whether it is energy market for the industry, for people investing but also give an opportunity for this big population to keep growing.”
In the midst of a global energy crisis that began last year, the 10th Anniversary Global Energy Summit convened knowledgeable stakeholders to provide insights and solutions to the current turbulent global energy markets. (End)