After over a year of planning—and ignorance by the media—the African Energy Bank is about to become a reality. Conceived of in 2022, the bank—a joint project of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO)—was a direct response to the continent’s growing need for energy finance, and its inability to obtain it from Western institutions. The timing would indicate that, after waiting for a year into 2020 Covid “recovery” to get Western finance for growth, Africa decided to act on its own, taking a page from the BRICS playbook.
Speaking at the Inter-African Trade Fair in Cairo on Nov. 16, Afreximbank Director of Client Relations Rene Awambeng said, “the management of Afreximbank, working on the sidelines with African Petroleum Producers Organization, has decided to create another agency that will engage in financing the energy Africa requirement. We are in the final stage of getting all the approvals and it is going to be an organization set off by treaties.” The APPO has 18 African member states, and one “honorary member,” the nation of Venezuela.
