When Russia’s state-owned Rosatom announced last week that it had signed a deal to build two nuclear power plants in Ethiopia, it was energy policy in action. Such geopolitical moves, characteristic of Moscow and Beijing extending influence across the continent with the poorest, fastest-growing human population on earth and the most fragile states, have throttled American influence for decades. While Washington lectured Africans on climate targets and carbon accounting, banning them from financing fossil fuel energy on their soil, our rivals took advantage.
The United States can no longer sit out reality. Energy diplomacy, anchored in American technology, private capital, and pragmatic policy, is one of the most powerful tools we have. We must meet Africa where it is, with solutions that use the cheapest, most available local resources, including coal, oil, and natural gas, to deliver reliable electricity at scale.
Today, 600 million Africans live without access to electricity. For millions more, access to the power grid is unreliable or prohibitively expensive. This is not just a humanitarian problem; it has economic and geopolitical consequences. No country has ever climbed from poverty to prosperity without abundant dispatchable energy. Nations with per capita energy consumption below 500 kilowatt-hours per year typically have incomes of around $1,000. Once consumption reaches 10,000 kWh, poverty begins to fall. Above 100,000 kWh, it virtually disappears. That is empirical reality, not ideology.
Yet Western-led institutions from the United Nations to the World Bank still push policies that deny poor African countries access to the fuels that powered every developed, industrialized economy on Earth. The UN’s much-diluted Net Zero Banking Alliance pressures financial institutions to stop lending for fossil fuel projects. The World Bank discourages financing for fossil fuels and nuclear power while privileging wind and solar, despite the fact that these sources alone cannot “fire up the plants you need to make your country great,” as President Trump bluntly told UN delegates.
The result is predictable: African nations remain poor, and their citizens look abroad for opportunity. In 2020, 11 million Africans lived in Europe, 5 million in Asia, and 3 million in North America, driven there by energy poverty and political instability. If the West truly wants to reduce migration pressures, it must enable industrial growth in Africa.
Meanwhile, China and Russia are filling the vacuum. Beijing has financed coal, gas, and hydroelectric plants across Africa, often in exchange for resource concessions or strategic footholds. Moscow is positioning itself as a nuclear power partner, from Egypt to Ethiopia. Each deal cements alliances and deepens influence at Washington’s expense.
America can now change course with a pragmatic energy abundance approach in Africa. We should launch a new era of energy diplomacy focused on helping friendly African nations develop their own oil, gas, and coal resources with American capital, technology, and management, including technical and policy advice.
Consider Eswatini, a small, pro-American kingdom in Southern Africa that imports its electricity from South Africa, whose electricity utility has high prices and regular blackouts. Eswatini could become an attractive investment destination for manufacturers wanting to supply the Southern African market if the kingdom were able to provide the cheapest and most reliable base load electricity using local resources. American companies can help but cannot secure financing without U.S. government support. Washington should step in here: not with handouts, but with guarantees, political backing, and a strategic vision that aligns American energy business success with African development.
Eswatini is not alone. Across the continent, there are governments eager to work with the United States to solve their energy challenges. What they lack is a willing partner ready to deploy the full range of American strengths: innovative engineering, entrepreneurial capital, and world-class project and technical management.
A practical idea would be for Washington to establish a framework of “Edison Accords,” named for the American genius who promised to make electricity “so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.” These accords would be voluntary partnerships with African nations committed to energy abundance. The United States would provide diplomatic support, facilitate private-sector investment, and help coordinate financing from export credit agencies and development banks, and private financial institutions. In return, partner countries could commit to transparent governance, rule-of-law protections for investors, and regulations that allow projects to move forward fast.
The potential benefits are enormous. For African nations, abundant energy would mean industrialization, jobs, better healthcare, and the infrastructure needed to weather natural disasters. For the United States, it would mean billions in revenues for our companies, deeper strategic ties in a region critical to global supply chains, and a powerful counterweight to authoritarian influence.
Critics will object that this approach runs counter to climate goals. But the choice for Africa is not between fossil fuels and a perfect green future; it is between fossil fuels and the dark miseries of poverty, instability, human degradation, and mass migration. American technology can make coal and gas generation cleaner and more efficient than anything China or Russia offers. China has 1200 coal power plants and builds two new coal plants a week. Why can’t African nations be helped to grow with fossil fuels and clean American technology?
American energy diplomacy with Africa that is grounded in realism and partnership is the way forward.
François Baird is a Distinguished Fellow at the Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRINC).