Yueyang, a city steeped in history along China’s Hunan Province, this week welcomed diplomats, engineers and energy officials from across two continents. Among those who travelled far to attend were the Ambassadors of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Kingdom of Lesotho and Zambia, the Chargé d’Affaires of Libya, and a number of African diplomats based in Beijing. They came for the Third China-Africa Energy Cooperation Project Promotion Conference, whose stated purpose, in the words of one chief organizer, is nothing less than bringing electricity, industry and opportunity to African communities.
Speaking on the morning of 4 November 2026, H.E. Ambassador Alhaji Sarjoh Bah, PhD, Permanent Representative of the African Union to the People’s Republic of China, welcomed what he called African brothers and sisters who had journeyed far to be present. His remarks, delivered on behalf of H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the AU Commission, carried a message aimed less at conference halls than at the households and workplaces that energy policy ultimately reaches. Cooperation, he argued, should serve Africa’s industrialization, energy security and self-reliant development, so that green energy benefits the African people more widely.
The human stakes sit behind the technical vocabulary of the day. Ambassador Bah described a continent rich in solar, wind and hydropower resources, where the task now is to turn resource advantages into development momentum. That translation from resource to livelihood runs through the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which envisions regional and continental power pools as instruments of integrated, resilient and sustainable energy development. The AU has adopted the African Green Hydrogen Strategy, the African Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plan, and the African Energy Transition Strategy and Action Plan, a continental framework the ambassador described as just, inclusive and equitable.
Some of that work is already changing realities on the ground. The Kenya-Tanzania interconnection has been commissioned, linking the Eastern Africa Power Pool and the Southern African Power Pool and offering an early demonstration of the African Single Electricity Market, known as AfSEM, and the Continental Power System Masterplan, or CMP. A hydropower project jointly developed by Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has entered the implementation stage. Pre-feasibility studies for cross-border corridors such as Burundi-Tanzania and Angola-the DRC have been completed. Each of these projects, Ambassador Bah noted, aligns with the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, PIDA, whose second Priority Action Plan emphasises cross-border transmission, hydropower and regional power interconnection.
Meanwhile, the conference theme, “Building a China-Africa Green Energy Partnership,” was presented as closely aligned with that continental agenda. Ambassador Bah offered three observations. First, China-Africa energy cooperation has aligned with the AU’s frameworks, and the China-AU Energy Partnership has provided a platform for policy dialogue and technical exchanges. Second, the promotion platform should be connected to Africa’s priority project pipeline, moving beyond planning documents to turn cross-border interconnection and clean generation projects into bankable and deliverable ones. Africa, he said, has abundant renewable resources, while China has vast experience in clean energy technologies and engineering construction, a complementarity visible in the specific corridors and projects before the delegates.
Third, the partnership should deepen on the basis of Africa’s own frameworks. The ambassador stressed that Africa’s energy transition must be just, inclusive and development-oriented, serving universal access, industrialization and long-term energy security rather than the expansion of installed capacity alone. He called for cooperation in expanding renewable energy development, cross-border infrastructure connectivity, green technology innovation, capacity building and personnel training, and investment and financing support, with a focus on building local capacity in manufacturing, maintenance and operations.
The setting also carried symbolic weight. Ambassador Bah noted that seventy years ago, China and Africa embarked on a historic course of friendly exchanges, and that seventy years later, Africa stands at a critical stage in moving the energy goals of Agenda 2063 from blueprint to implementation. He commended H.E. President Xi Jinping for leadership that continues to deepen China-Africa relations, observing that China is celebrating what he described as its two miracles of rapid economic growth and long-term social stability.
He closed by reaffirming the AU’s readiness to partner with China for more deliverable, sustainable and African-owned outcomes, through PIDA, AfSEM and CMP as implementation tools, in the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. “May the tree of China-Africa friendship remain evergreen,” he told the delegates, before ending simply: “Xie Xie.”
For the communities these power pools are meant to reach, the question that lingers after Yueyang is whether the corridors on the agenda become the electricity in their homes.