"It creates a very high barrier to private investment, for example, but the Angolan government is implementing reforms to change this policy, reducing these ineffective subsidies for the Angolan people," William Butterfield said in statements to the press.
The United States government held this Wednesday in Lobito, Benguela province, a Conference on Coordination of Support for the Lobito Corridor, a railway project that will connect Angola to the mining areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.
According to William Butterfield, this initiative by Power Africa and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) brought together the private sector with international donors to draw up a private investment plan that will support not only the development of the energy sector, but also general development.
The official highlighted that clean energy is the best form of energy and the focus of this conference is to promote it, highlighting that this topic is the main investment topic to be addressed during the visit, from October 13 to 15, that US President Joe Biden is making to Angola.
"Investment in the energy sector has a very important impact on the development of communities, especially rural communities", said the USAID representative in Angola, highlighting the project to support farmers to increase production, especially the empowerment of women.
In statements to Lusa, the president of the board of directors of People-to-People Development Aid (ADPP), Rikke Viholm, said that several projects are being implemented along the Lobito Corridor in the areas of education, health and agriculture, the latter with support for 8000 women farmers in the areas of Cubal, Ganda, Catabola and Londuimbali.
Rikke Viholm stressed that this project, funded by USAID, Exxon Mobil and Azule Energy, aims to help improve agriculture and remove barriers in terms of financial literacy, land rights and active citizenship.
"We are looking forward to Power Africa's participation in this initiative, because women are seeing that growth is lacking in many things (...) such as access to energy and water, which can further increase their production," she said.
In turn, Power Africa's deputy director, Ted Lawrence, said that the focus is on expanding connectivity and the goal is to reach 30,000 megawatts and 60 million connections for the African continent, stressing that there are many challenges in terms of transmission.
"Angola has a high level of energy production, but it lacks connection with the south, center and west of the continent," Ted Lawrence stressed, stressing that, for now, one of the goals is to reach at least three gigawatts of the energy potential existing in the South Pole, with Namibia.
Ted Lawrence also said that it is also necessary to connect the southern part of the country, adding that on Tuesday they visited the provinces of Huambo and Bié, and found that there are communities that do not have access to energy.
US President Joe Biden will visit Angola from 13 to 15 October, aiming to strengthen economic partnerships and mark the creation of the first transcontinental open-access railway network in Africa.
According to Ted Lawrence, the Angolan government estimates an investment of more than one billion dollars for the electrical interconnection of the Lobito Corridor with the DR Congo and Zambia, but the prospect is to go beyond this amount, because not only the railway line is at stake, but also "investment opportunities along the corridor to promote development".
The Lobito Corridor was the first strategic economic corridor launched under the aegis of the G7 Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership (GIP) in May 2023.
On the sidelines of the September 2023 G20 Summit in New Delhi, the European Union and the United States issued a joint statement to join forces to support the development of the Corridor.
