Africa's energy choices are also choices about livelihoods, industrialisation, cities, institutions, inequality and climate resilience. AISESA produces and mobilises research that is grounded in African realities and connected to the decisions, institutions and communities that shape energy futures on the continent.
Energy and climate challenges are not solved by evidence alone. They are shaped by institutions, political priorities, financing constraints, implementation realities and lived experience. AISESA brings researchers, policymakers and practitioners into sustained collaboration so that knowledge can inform decisions and experience can reshape research. This allows us to produce knowledge that is relevant to African priorities, grounded in practice and better able to contribute to lasting institutional and societal change.
AISESA's research is organised through five interconnected clusters that build long-term expertise across the energy field. Each approaches African energy and development from a different perspective, while working with the others across shared questions, countries and thematic priorities.
Examining technology choices, energy-system models and development pathways for low-carbon African futures.
Read more →Studying how policies and programmes are designed, delivered, adapted and evaluated in practice.
Read more →Examining the institutions, regulation and political economy shaping African energy and climate action.
Read more →Investigating how finance, technology and innovation can be mobilised on accessible and equitable terms.
Read more →Strengthening the institutions, capabilities and knowledge infrastructure needed for sustained African leadership.
Read more →Alongside the clusters, three thematic priorities bring different areas of expertise together around major questions facing African societies and economies. They provide a common space for researchers, policymakers and practitioners to examine how energy intersects with livelihoods, industrialisation and urban development.
Energy access matters most when it improves people's ability to earn, produce, care, move, learn and adapt. Through this theme, AISESA examines how energy solutions can support productive livelihoods across agriculture, food systems, small enterprise and community services.
African industrial development will shape the continent's energy demand, employment, public revenue, trade and economic sovereignty for decades to come. Through this theme, AISESA explores how energy systems, infrastructure, mineral resources, technology and industrial policy interact to support inclusive industrial growth.
Africa's cities are expanding rapidly, creating urgent questions around energy demand, mobility, housing, public services, employment, informality and climate resilience. Through this theme, AISESA examines how urban energy systems can support more inclusive and sustainable urban development.
Short reads, policy briefs and data stories drawn from the research above — the same intellectual project told at a different depth.
Ghana and Kenya have produced ambitious Energy Transition and Investment Plans. A new paper in Climate Policy asks the question the rhetoric keeps avoiding — beyond the emissions figures, are these plans actually just? Distributional, procedural, recognition, and restorative justice tell four different stories. Lake Turkana shows the cost when they go unanswered.
A study in Environmental Research Letters models three net-zero pathways for Africa (2050, 2070, 2100). Under all scenarios, staple food prices rise 87 to 96% above business-as-usual as cropland is redirected to biomass. The question is not whether to price carbon, but how to prevent the cost 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.