BERLIN – Africa is home to more than 1.3 billion people and has significant natural resources, yet the continent only generates 3% of global GDP and 2% of global manufacturing added value. This week, at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue, UNIDO Director General Gerd Müller called for global financial solidarity and for stronger partnerships and cooperation to drive sustainable industrial development in African countries.

Speaking on the panel, Enhancing African-European Cooperation for a Green Future, Müller emphasized that the world has the necessary solutions and technologies, and that UNIDO is a leading global platform for knowledge and technology transfer. He stressed that “Africa is the continent of the future”, adding, “We need win-win situations with closer cooperation, and solidarity needs to be the signal from this Dialogue. And that means greater financial solidarity!"

Müller reiterated his call for a Marshall Plan with Africa. “Europe’s resource needs do not come first. We need energy, electricity, hydrogen from Africa, for Africa. And then Europe and industrialized countries.”

The Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue is an important forum on the global energy transition. Key decision-makers engage in meetings and discussions to solve urgent challenges and forge partnerships in pursuit of an environmentally sound, secure and affordable global energy transition.

The UNIDO Director General took the opportunity to meet with representatives of member states, including Energy Ministers Omar Paganini from Uruguay, and Diego Pardow from Chile, to discuss the acceleration of local industrial production and cooperation on renewables and green hydrogen.

Müller also engaged with key partners to foster stronger collaboration, including Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group, and, ahead of the UNFCCC COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology.

He also met Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy, and agreed on the priority to ensure access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services for the hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa who are still without.

With support from the newly opened UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office in Berlin, Müller met with the principals of the two Berlin-based enterprises that won UNIDO Global Call awards for green and innovative technologies and solutions towards net zero in 2021 and 2022 – betteries AMPS GmbH and eeaser GmbH.

UNIDO - as the custodian of SDG9, the UN 2030 Agenda goal on industry, innovation and infrastructure - recognizes the crucial need for a global energy transition through the greening of industry. Numerous programmes are already in place to support UNIDO member states, including the Global Programme for Hydrogen in Industry, the Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres,  and the Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative.

For further information, please contact

Olaf Deutschbein, ITPO Germany, Head of Berlin Office

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