U.S. -Africa summit: U.S to invest $14 b in construction among other projects in Africa

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Africa will receive a total of $14 billion for investment from Obama administration as announced in the U.S. -Africa summit last week. This will roll out U.S’s sleeves in a bid to strengthen economic ties with the governments.

Part of commitments by the United States is a $250 million fund to support construction and operation of a 310-megawatt Lake Turkana Wind Project, which is the largest of its kind in Africa. The investment will help boost the capacity of the plant by 20% in order to produce power to serve more 2.5 million Kenyans.

The money will be expected to fund investments in construction of infrastructure, energy and projects in the information technology around the continent. Funds come from the government of Kenya and private partners in the United States. This will be funded through the Power Africa project launched by Obama last year June.

Obama has called for the African officials to support foreign investors by creating necessary investment conditions. African leaders said they were hopeful that they would join in the party for becoming full partners with the United States for $85 billion a year.

General Electric will contribute $2 billion that will help boost infrastructure, increase access to energy and worker skills. African Coca Cola bottling partners will also get an investment worth $5 billion from the company. This will help establish new manufacturing lines, equipment and safe water access programs. IBM will also add $2 b into the region in terms of investments in the next 7 years. Following an agreement with Blackstone Group (BX.N) funds, Dangote will inject $5 billion in energy projects in sub-Saharan region. Mo Ibrahim, an African telecoms billionaire encouraged U.S businesses to invest in Africa and also to pay taxes. World Bank has also committed $5 b for the sake of increasing access of electricity in Africa.

Obama’s Power Africa project is slated to get additional $12 billion from private companies to help increase access of power to Africa.

The U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance initiative (U.S.-ACEF) will, according to Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement in Washington D.C. during the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit that it will add $10 million in supporting clean energy. This will target projects to increase access of electricity mainly at sub-Saharan region where 600 million people have no electricity. Rwanda has already benefited from an investment in Gigawatt Global’s 8.5 megawatt project, which is a grid-connected solar power plant that spent $19.4 million.