Dr. Kevin Kariuki has since April 2020 been the Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth at the African Development Bank and oversees the Bank’s work on the expedited and sustainable alleviation of energy poverty, including pursuit of universal energy access, as well as the advancement of climate-resilient and low-carbon development trajectory, in Africa. Under his watch, the Bank’s public, and private sector energy portfolio, increasingly predominated by renewable energy, is rapidly growing, and is currently valued at about USD 10 billion. On the policy front, Dr. Kariuki has overseen amendment of the Energy Policy to preclude new investments in coal and the enactment of a new Policy and Strategy for climate change and green growth that underpin an ambitious Plan for the Bank’s Paris Alignment. A chartered engineer with over 30 years’ experience, Dr. Kariuki was formerly Head of Infrastructure and the global lead on power at Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) – an affiliate of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Dr. Kariuki has led the development of over US$2b of privately financed infrastructure projects, including the USD650m 147MW Ruzizi III Hydropower Project (Burundi, DRC and Rwanda); the US$902m, 250MW Bujagali Hydropower Project in Uganda; and the US$650m, 1,280 Gb/s, 17,000km submarine optic fibre cable linking South and East African countries with other international broadband cables in South Africa, India and France. Dr. Kariuki is a frequent global speaker on private sector participation in infrastructure, including public-private partnership programs and was the 1996 joint-winner of the Institution of Electrical Engineers Premium Award. Dr. Kariuki holds a PhD in Reliability of Power Systems from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Anne Beathe Tvinnereim (47) was appointed Minister of International Development on 14 October 2021. Ms. Tvinnereim has two children.

Anne Beathe Tvinnereim is the deputy leader of the Centre Party. She has served as the County Councillor for Planning, Climate and Environment in the Viken County Council, State Secretary at the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, and Political Adviser at the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

She has also previously worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad and the think tank Agenda.

The Minister of International Development is responsible for international development efforts in countries outside the OSCE, the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. She is also responsible for development cooperation under the auspices of the UN system, the World Bank, the regional development banks and other global funds and programmes. In addition, she is responsible for Norad, Norec and Norfund.

Ms Tvinnereim comes from Halden, Norway, and has a degree in political science.

Edward Borgstein is a Managing Director at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, where he leads Country Delivery in Africa. He has spent the past 12 years running teams to design, build, and scale solutions for energy efficiency and renewables around the world.

Prior to joining the Alliance, Edward was a Director at RMI, where he co-led the Africa Energy Program. Earlier in his career, he founded a leading Brazilian energy consultancy, and helped launch an award-winning green building business in the UK. His work has ranged from whole-system sustainable energy analysis and program design to hand-on engineering and delivery.

Edward holds a BA (Hons) and MEng in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He completed primary and secondary education in Blantyre, Malawi.

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Aaron Cheng is the CEO of PowerGen Renewable Energy, a leading private power company operating across Africa. The company builds and manages power infrastructure to deliver clean, reliable and affordable electricity to its customers. PowerGen currently serves 125,000+ people with 24/7 power. Aaron left Harvard Business School after his first year to join PowerGen. Prior to HBS, Aaron was at Accel-KKR, where he invested in and supported operationally with technology growth companies, and at Barclays Capital, in Mergers & Acquisitions. He holds a BA in Political Economy and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Commissioner for climate policy and climate financing. (i) Studies of political science, economics and law; (ii) more than twenty-five years of experience in the field of development policy: research, non-governmental organizations, and government; (iii) motivated to work for sustainable development since a thesis on international climate policy in 1991; (iv) head of the supervisory boards of Blue Action Fund, Legacy Landscapes Fund and Foundation Alliance for Development and Climate;

Since 2003 Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), e.g. Coordinator of the German G8 Africa Personal Representative, Head of German Development Cooperation in Burundi and Rwanda, Head of Division Special Initiative ONEWORLD – No Hunger.

Terje Osmundsen is the founder and CEO of Empower New Energy, the renewable energy investment platform company created in 2017. During his 8 years as Head of Business Development in Scatec Solar, Terje developed a distinctive track-record of pioneering and scaling solar energy in emerging markets. He has a background as Managing Director of the environmental business unit of the engineering company Kværner, and senior executive positions in Telenor, Saga Petroleum and Alcatel.

Terje is known as a seasoned thought leader and public speaker. He has served for 8 years as Chairman of Caritas Norway, and was also a non-executive director of the listed company REC Silicon. He currently serves as a Board Member at Norsk e-Fuel AS and SolarDuck NV.

Terje also has a background from politics and government, including working as a Political Adviser to the Prime Minister. He has a post-graduate (Cand.polit) degree from the University of Oslo in Political Science, Economics and Law.

In his former role as Senior Director responsible for private sector and investment programs at the Clean Cooking Alliance, Peter George co-led the structuring and successful fundraising of Spark+ Africa Fund, a $54 million 7-year Luxembourg-domiciled impact fund investing in clean and modern cooking energy solutions in Africa. Upon the fund’s launch in March 2022, Peter departed CCA to co-manage the debt and quasi-equity fund which invests across the value chains of LPG, ethanol, biomass, biogas, and electric appliances. Peter’s 17-year career in the renewable and traditional energy sector spans advisory and principal investing roles in impact investment, development finance, and private sector development in frontier markets, as well as bulge-bracket investment banking, private equity, and project finance in the United States.

Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa officially began her role as UNDP’s Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Africa on August 15th, 2018. In this role she leads UNDP’s work supporting 46 countries in Africa to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ms. Eziakonwa succeeds Abdoulaye Mar Dieye who now leads UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support.

Prior to taking up this post, Ms. Eziakon­wa-Onochie was UN Resident Coordinator, UNDP Resident Representative and UN Humanitarian Coor­dinator in Ethiopia (2015-2018), UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Uganda (2012-2015), and before that held the same position in Lesotho (2008-2012). She has also worked as Chief of the Africa Section for Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) where she managed over 15 country operations in Africa. Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Eziakonwa held a series of senior positions with civil society organisations in Africa.

Ms. Ahunna Eziakon­wa-Onochie holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs with a focus on economic and political development in Africa from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York. Ms. Eziakonwa-Onochie is personally passionate about broadening the space for engaging youth and women in sustainable development

Ash Sharma, Vice President and Head of the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa programme at Nefco, is a climate, environmental finance, policy and investment specialist with over 30 years of experience in over 60 countries, with a current focus on Africa. Sharma has served on various international climate change steering and working groups for Nordic Council of Ministers, UNEP, World Bank, G8 and G20 and has been an adviser to the European Commission, Innovate UK and the Climate Policy Initiative.

Geoff Sinclair is CEO of Camco, a climate and impact fund manager leading the energy transition in emerging markets. Camco manages REPP, a leading funder of distributed renewable energy projects in Africa. Geoff has extensive experience in climate finance, having previously started and led Standard Bank’s carbon and climate finance business. He first entered the climate negotiations process at COP7, where he worked on market mechanisms.

(session moderator)

Dr. Daniel-Alexander Schroth is the Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the African Development Bank. In this capacity he oversees the Bank’s lending and non-lending activities in the renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean cooking space. He is also responsible for the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), the Bank’s largest blended finance facility, and the Desert to Power Initiative. He was previously the coordinator of the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Africa Hub hosted by the AfDB in partnership with the AU, NEPAD and UNDP. Daniel also coordinated the Africa Climate Technology and Finance Center project, the Green Mini-Grid Market Development Program and the Bank’s involvement in the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund. Daniel has extensive experience in energy policy and renewable energy. Prior to joining the AfDB, he worked for several years for the European Commission in both headquarters and the field, for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and in the private sector. Daniel serves in several steering and oversight committees. Daniel holds a Ph.D. and Masters in International Relations with a focus on international energy policy from the University of Cambridge, and business degrees from Reims Management School and the European School of Business (ESB) Reutlingen.