Hailemariam Desalegn: Africa needs a climate-smart development leap

The next 20 years, reshaped by rapid geopolitical upheavals, demographic shifts and climate crises, will define the ecological and economic trajectory of the human race.

Climate change is undoubtedly the defining existential crisis of our era, particularly for Africa. But for this beloved continent, the sweeping challenge doubles as an unprecedented opportunity to leapfrog traditional development and emerge as a global powerhouse for green solutions.

Africa is simultaneously the most vulnerable to climate impacts and the possessor of the world’s greatest potential for green growth.

The most urgent challenge, and the single greatest opportunity of the next two decades, then, is executing a global just energy transition while rapidly building climate resilience in green infrastructure. This would transform Africa from a perceived victim into the primary engine of global sustainability.

Why Hailemariam Desalegn? Hailemariam Desalegn was Ethiopia’s prime minister from 2012 to 2018, after previously serving as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and chaired the African Union from 2013 to 2014. He represented African heads of state and governments as their lead negotiator at the Paris climate conference in 2015. Since leaving office, Desalegn has remained deeply involved in the institutions shaping Africa’s development. His extensive career in leadership and governance have therefore given him a bird’s eye view of the question that he considers in this essay: how does Africa find a new, green path forward?

Realising this vision will require a new paradigm of African leadership, and a sense of urgency characterised by strategic foresight, institutional audacity, and a unified geopolitical voice.

Nowhere is this leadership more urgently required than in managing Africa’s demographic shift and rapid urbanisation.

Over the next 20 years, Africa’s population is projected to reach over 2 billion, with over half of its citizens living in cities. This influx requires a fundamental reimagining of urban planning, transport, and waste management, particularly in Eastern and the Horn of Africa, where cities are at the sharp edge of both climate risk and green innovation.

Reimagining climate diplomacy

At the same time, the world must have completely overhauled its energy systems by 2046 to avoid catastrophic warming. For major emitters, this means aggressively phasing out fossil fuels and scaling up renewable capacity.

However, the global transition cannot succeed if it leaves African cities behind. By 2040, cities like Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Addis Ababa will absorb tens of millions of new residents.

The urgent challenge is to bypass the fossil-fuel-heavy development pathways taken by the Global North. Africa possesses 60% of the world’s best solar energy resources, but it has only installed a tiny fraction of global solar PV capacity. International capital must be mobilised to de-risk investments in African urban renewables.

Unlocking this potential will demand a sophisticated brand of climate diplomacy.

The African leadership of the next two decades must desist from walking the beaten path of historical grievance, and shift towards interest-driven negotiations that position the continent as a strategic partner offering global solutions.

The African Climate Summit hosted in Nairobi three years ago was a turning point. It framed Africa’s rapid urbanisation not as a looming crisis, but as an opportunity to build the world’s largest green asset base. The host’s development of geothermal energy showcases how diplomatic engagement can secure multilateral financing to power growing urban centres. By pushing its renewable energy mix past 90%, Kenya is provides its rapidly expanding capital with clean electricity.

The second summit, hosted by Ethiopia last year, offered an equally consequential demonstration of what that vision might mean in practice. It saw the inauguration of Africa’s largest hydroelectric project. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a powerful statement of the continent’s ambition to harness its natural resources to drive development. It has significantly expanded Ethiopia’s electricity supply while creating opportunities for regional power exports.

But the dam also illustrates the complexity of Africa’s green transition. Its future will depend not only on generating clean power, but on building the transmission networks, regional electricity markets and diplomatic frameworks needed to share its benefits.

Together, Kenya and Ethiopia are a blueprint for the next phase of African climate leadership: using abundant renewable resources to power development while deploying diplomacy to unlock finance, technology and regional infrastructure.

Future leadership must turn that ambition into systems capable of delivering clean, affordable energy to the continent’s rapidly growing cities and economies. I am encouraged that this determination is already reflected in Mission 300, and hope its announcement that 50 million Africans have already been connected to electricity is an early sign that it can deliver on its ambitious targets.

E-mobility and urban agriculture

Parallel to the energy transition is the urgent need to adapt urban food systems and public transit networks to support skyrocketing populations. In Africa, historical underinvestment in public infrastructure has left cities hyper-susceptible to crippling gridlock, heavy particulate pollution, and severe food supply chain vulnerabilities.

The next two decades must see a massive shift toward climate-smart urban design. This involves scaling up mass electric transit, deploying permeable “sponge city” infrastructure to prevent urban flooding, and integrating urban agriculture to secure local food systems.

This overhaul requires systems-thinking leadership capable of blending technological innovation with proactive municipal policy. The Horn of Africa and East Africa are emerging as pioneers in this space.

Ethiopia took a historic leap in 2024 by becoming the first country to effectively ban the import of petrol and diesel vehicles, forcing a rapid transition to clean transport. The foundations of the country’s ambitions to leapfrog fossil-fuel-intensive transport were laid during my time in office. We implemented the Climate-Resilient Green Economy strategy and oversaw the launch of Addis Ababa’s electric light-rail system in 2015.

Today, that early push is evolving into a broader transition towards electric mobility. I am glad to say that Ethiopia offers a glimpse of how African cities can use regulation, renewable power and new infrastructure to build cleaner urban economies.

Integrating green value chains

Africa holds the keys to the global transition through its vast reserves of critical minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage.

The historical paradigm of extracting raw materials from Africa to power wealthy nations must be replaced with a model focused on local value addition, building processing plants and manufacturing hubs within the continent. This would create millions of green jobs for its rapidly growing, young population.

Achieving local value addition is impossible without cross-border cooperation, placing continental integration at the heart of Africa’s environmental future. Leaders must look past narrow parochial interests and commit fully to the architecture of the African Continental Free Trade Area to build regional manufacturing hubs for urban infrastructure.

In East Africa, the regional integration of electricity grids and industrial zones serves as a vital case study. Through the Eastern Africa Power Pool, Ethiopia’s massive hydropower infrastructure links directly with Kenya’s geothermal and wind networks. This integrated leadership allows clean energy surpluses to power the region’s growing manufacturing centres.

By harmonising trade and regulatory policies under the free trade area, East African leaders can establish regional supply chains where minerals extracted in one country are processed in another. This will help build the solar panels, electric buses, and grid components needed to construct Africa’s future mega-cities.

Re-modelling development finance

Executing this green transformation requires an unprecedented influx of capital.

The current global financial architecture imposes exorbitant risk premiums on African development, making borrowing for renewable infrastructure prohibitively expensive. Africa therefore requires financial leaders and technocrats who can aggressively pioneer innovative financing mechanisms. These include green municipal bonds and public-private partnerships for sustainable real estate.

This financial agility must be backed by robust sub-national institution building. Domestically, institutional leadership must manifest as transparent regulatory frameworks and well-governed city authorities.

A compelling regional example is Rwanda’s green fund, FONERWA, alongside the development of the Kigali Green City project. This initiative serves as a model for sustainable urban development, combining affordable, climate-resilient housing with green spaces, rainwater harvesting, and waste-to-energy systems.

By ensuring absolute transparency, rigorous project screening, and alignment with national development goals, Rwanda has successfully attracted both public and private international capital.

True leadership across Africa will mean scaling these frameworks to municipal levels and building city governments capable of managing billions in green capital with absolute accountability.

The call of the times

The environmental and demographic challenges of the next 20 years are undeniably daunting, but they offer a new blueprint for global cooperation. The world can no longer view Africa through the lens of vulnerability. Instead, the global community must recognise the continent as a vital laboratory for green innovation and sustainable urban development.

The catalyst for this transformation is a new generation of African leaders: diplomatically shrewd, institutionally disciplined, and deeply committed to continental unity.

By channelling finance, technology, and political will toward a just energy transition and resilient urban ecosystems, this leadership can confront the climate crisis head on, ensuring a liveable, equitable, and prosperous planet for generations to come.