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Tuesday 20 May 2014

World Economic Forum first time in Nigeria

The 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa ended up in the Nigerian capital, drawing investment worth more than 68 billion U.S. dollars. More than 900 leaders from business, government, civil society and academia participated in the threeday meeting from 7th to 9th May.

According to the WEF’s Africa Director Elsie Kanza said: “A Nigerian company would invest about 16 billion dollars over the next four years, which will create around 180,000 jobs. Another company will invest 1 billion dollars over the next 10 years and which will create at least 20,000 jobs”. “A total of 2 billion dollars from donor agencies has been committed to improve electricity supply across Nigeria, and 700 million dollars to the immunization program,” she added.

It was the first when this threeday event of World Economic Forum, under the theme of “Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs,” was held in a West African country.

As part of the WEF programme, Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum and Minister of Power co-chaired a special session on the African energy outlook, moderated by Dr. Birol and with the partaking of selected high-level personalities, counting the USAID Administrator, the Minister of Energy of Benin, the Deputy Minister of Power of Ghana, the UN Special Representative for the Sustainable Energy for All initiative and top executives from Shell, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemical, ENI and other companies.

In the context of WEF Summit, the IEA Chief Economist conveyed keynote demonstrations at sessions deliberating the prospect of electricity and the impending impact of climate change on the continent. He also had several bilateral meetings, including with Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum, Minister of Power and Governor of the Central Bank, as well as with Japan’s Vice Minister for Environment and the Ambassadors of several IEA members: Italy, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the European Union (who also hosted a dinner with 15 high-level participants).

The status and effectiveness of the “Africa Energy Outlook” study were consistently documented, with reference of its latent to add significantly to the continent’s development. This was imitated by the level of engagement by government and central bank of Nigeria, which will be sending a senior official to the IEA to work on the report.

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