| Summary: | Africa?s chronic power problems have escalated in recent years into a crisis affecting 30 countries, taking a heavy toll on economic growth and productivity. The region has inadequate generation capacity, limited electrification, low power consumption, unreliable services, and high costs. It also faces a power sector financing gap on the order of 21 billion a year. It spends only about a quarter of what it needs to spend on power, much of this on operating expenditure required to run the continent?s high-cost power systems, leaving little for the huge investments needed to provide a long-term.
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