Kenya’s President launches Africa green industrialisation initiative

William Ruto, President of Kenya, and the UAE joined to convene African Heads of State and other prominent personalities in a landmark event at COP28 to accelerate Africa’s green industrialisation.

The event was attended by the Heads of State for Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia, the Vice President of Cote d’Ivoire; COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber and CEO Adnan Amin; Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, the UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt; Principals from leading green developers as well as industry, multilateral development banks, and key institutions from across the UAE and Africa.

President Ruto launched the ‘Africa Green Industrialisation Initiative’ at the event, which aims to accelerate and scale green industries and businesses across Africa, promote climate mitigation and adaptation, and catalyse economic green growth on the continent. The initiative aims to create and implement a new economic narrative for the continent and its role in global trade, develop a full value-chain of activities and sectors to drive continent’s green industrialisation, and launch regional partnerships and consortium of collaborations to implement it.

In his remarks, President Ruto underscored that "the initiative marks a concrete step toward the realisation of the Nairobi Declaration, activating private sector-led scaling-up of green industrial clusters."

African leaders unequivocally embraced the Africa Green Industrialisation Initiative as the definitive pathway for their nations' developments. Leaders discussed their plans to activate end-to-end socioeconomic transformation through development of value-added green products, pooling of resources, attracting greater investments and de-risking, and utilising the full range of their natural resources to achieve an inclusive energy transition that leaves no one behind.

"We are forging a green pathway for Africa. Through strategic collaborations with industrial and energy developers across the continent, we have set in motion a virtuous cycle, fostering economic growth and sustainable job creation” stated, Macky Sall, President of Senegal.

The Kenyan President’s initiative underscores the importance of green industrialisation to harness the African continent’s vast and high-quality resources to secure prosperity for all. President Ruto announced over US$4 billion worth of projects that come under the initiative and that have been set up between Kenya and international investors in a wide range of sectors including green fertilizer, green hydrogen, geothermal power for data centres, and climate-smart agriculture.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/project-news/04122023/kenyas-president-launches-africa-green-industrialisation-initiative/