$10 billion is required to revitalise the energy sector of West African countries’ economies according to a plan approved by the Economic Community of West African States.
28 000 MW of new generating capacity needs to be added to available capacity for the period 2001 to 2020.But the sub-region is hampered in raising the finance because of its small size and foreign investors’ perception of the area as being a high risk zone, mainly because of political instability. Nonetheless there is an urgent need to construct new electricity generation plants and to update and build new high voltage transmission lines over the next 15 years. About 5.8 billion dollars is needed for a 10-fold increase in existing transmission capacity and a six-fold increase in installed generation capacity.
