EnergyNet has announced that the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) has joined the Youth Energy Summit (YES!) as its first foundational partner
The Youth Energy Summit is a convening hub dedicated to aligning entrepreneurs, students and early career professionals with the corporate and development communities. The event is organised by EnergyNet and is running this year from 20-23 June in co-location with Africa Energy Forum. In the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, more than 1,000 attendees will convene to boost the skills, connections and business readiness of the new generation of African energy leaders.
The YES! programme has a goal of reaching 100 million people across the continent in the next ten years through a network of solution providers. Combining in-person and online learning and networking, it enables the participation by anyone from anywhere in Africa.
GEAPP is an alliance of philanthropy, governments in emerging and developed economies, and technology, policy, and financing partners. Its common mission is to enable low- and medium-income countries (LMICs) shift to a clean energy, pro-growth model that accelerates universal energy access and inclusive economic growth while supporting the global community to meet critical climate goals.
With philanthropic partners, IKEA Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Bezos Earth Fund, GEAPP works to build the enabling environment, capacity, and market conditions for private sector solutions, catalyse new business models through innovation and entrepreneurship, and deploy high-risk capital to encourage private sector solutions and assist just transition solutions.
“It is no longer helpful to state that 600 million Africans lack access to energy as a statistic of relevance, without addressing the fact that this number is only getting larger as population growth continues its war against energy access. And to give context to that statement, World Bank statistics have for a number of years forecasted that 25% of the world’s population, of which 50% of that 25% will be under 25 years of age, will live on the continent by 2050,” said Simon Gosling, managing director of EnergyNet.
“It is therefore time to look at this challenge through a different lens and focus directly on how Africa’s youths are empowered to increase the scale and pace of energy access, far beyond the current development model which operators in siloes and is often inaccessible to aspiring African entrepreneurs, leaving millions of people not only without electricity, but also without hope of change within their lifetimes. I’m grateful to GEAPP for their support as they also seek to tackle both climate change and job creations through their network of partners and investments.
“The support of GEAPP is critical to the programme’s success, not only does it bring in critical investment to provide more travel grants and greater market penetration, it brings a year round partnership striving in harmony to put Africans at the heart of their own development needs, creating millions of community based jobs with carbon-smart technologies, not only improving the livelihoods of children, but also the planet.”
Find out more information about YES! at: https://www.youth-energy-summit.com/
Learn more about Africa Energy Forum at: https://www.africa-energy-forum.com/
