Insights Hub

Uganda's next energy test is not simply how much power it produces, but whether energy enables people to earn, expand, and withstand shocks.

Nabaggala Nashua Kimuli is an Ugandan researcher and sustainable energy advocate pursuing a PhD in Management at Makerere University under the AISESA PhD Fellowship Programme — focusing on effective implementation approaches for energy access.

Adapted from Prof. Sokona's keynote at the West Africa Climate Justice Movement's July convening: the climate crisis is not an accident, not bad luck, not an act of God — it is the pre-known, pre-warned, and deliberately tolerated consequence of a system that chose profit over people, extraction over stewardship, and accumulation over survival.

"If an institution sets out to build local capacity—in the widest sense of institutional and human technical capacity—to enable a shift in policy and address long-standing inequities, it can’t leave those commitments implicit."

Prof. Quansah, Director of the Brew-Hammond Energy Centre at KNUST, reflects on the origins of his career in energy, where the gaps between research, policy and practice show up in Ghana today, and what regional power integration could mean for cross-border energy access.

A new paper in Climate Policy asks the question the rhetoric keeps avoiding — beyond the emissions figures, are these plans actually just? 

A study in Environmental Research Letters models three net-zero pathways for Africa; the emerging question is not whether to price carbon, but how to prevent costs from falling on the most vulnerable.

Africa's energy transition will be won or lost in implementation. Botswana and Uganda show that targets matter only when matched by credible procurement, resilient grids, bankable finance and institutions capable of turning ambition into reliable, inclusive and low-carbon power systems.

PayGo solar helped 25 to 30 million people in Africa access electricity between 2015 and 2020. But as commercial capital replaces grants, low-income and rural households risk being priced out. A recent paper in Communications Sustainability argues for keeping equity at the centre of the sector's growth.

A recent paper in Progress in Energy offers a practical scenario design approach for African energy pathways, built around four dimensions: development trajectories, renewable energy and environmental goals, electricity access and demand realism, and governance and financial feasibility.

A new study of Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa finds that the right way to finance renewable energy depends less on best practice than on local political and economic conditions.