Ken Opalo, associate professor at Georgetown University and author of An Africanist Perspective, joins the show to discuss what’s really behind chronic underinvestment in Africa’s power sector, what US policymakers are missing, and what gives him hope for the future of African development.
Ken Opalo is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. His research interests include legislative politics, subnational administration and local government, electoral politics, and the political economy of development in Africa. His first book, titled Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Post-Colonial Legacies (Cambridge University Press, 2019), explores how the adaptation of inherited colonial legislative institutional forms and practices continue to structure and influence contemporary politics and policy outcomes in Africa. He earned his BA from Yale University and PhD from Stanford University. Beyond academia, Ken writes a popular newsletter, An Africanist Perspective, that has over 20,000 subscribers.
Show Notes
- Subscribe to An Africanist Perspective, Ken’s Substack newsletter.
- Find Ken on LinkedIn and his website.
- Ken recommends Africa Must Be Modern, by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò.
Transcript
[00:00:07] ROSE MUTISO: I’m Rose Mutiso.
[00:00:09] KATIE AUTH: I am Katie Auth, and this is High Energy Planet, the podcast from the Energy for Growth Hub about new ideas to solve global energy poverty and the people behind them.
[00:00:17] ROSE MUTISO: So on today’s show, we are really excited to have Ken Opalo, who is an associate professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he teaches and researches political economy, development and geopolitics in African and emerging democracies, beyond academia. Ken writes a very popular Substack newsletter called An Africanist Perspective that has over 20,000 subscribers and counting. Ken is one of the most influential and clear-eyed voices on African governance and development, and he offers tough love critiques when we really need to hear them, sharp data dives, rich historical insights and the kind of bold ideas that really cut through the noise.
[00:00:52] KATIE AUTH: And we’ve known and followed Ken’s work for years. I would say he’s really emerged in the past few months as one of the most consistent and compelling thinkers talking about this really disruptive moment in international development and US policy as an opportunity and maybe even a welcome opportunity to fix a sector that in his view was deeply broken and even harmful in some ways. And for me, someone who spent many years at USAID, um, hearing his critiques, they’re certainly valid. They’re certainly very resonant, but they can also be painful and they should prompt some real soul searching among development Professionals. And Rose and I are both excited to dig into some of that with him today. So, Ken, welcome. Thank you so much for, for joining us.
[00:01:43] KEN OPALO: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you both, for the generous introduction and, and for having me on, also a big fan of your work at Energy for Growth. And, yeah, uh, looking forward to the conversation today.
[00:02:01] KATIE AUTH: So Ken, we wanted to start just by asking you to tell us something about where and how you grew up and how you think it’s shaped you.
[00:02:09] KEN OPALO: So growing up in Nairobi, where I’m right now. , I think shaped me in many ways. First of all, I went through public school, , so, you know, uh, an Nairobi City Commission school, and, you know, was able to walk home for lunch. then, you know, at some point I started that I wanted to be a pilot. And, that influenced the choice of high school I went to, which also influenced, you know, my choice to run away from med school at the end of high school, because as Rose would know, right? Uh, if you do well in Kenya, you’re destined for med school engineering or law school.
[00:02:44] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah. And actually the, your entire origin story is exactly the same as mine except for the pilot. The pilot, detour, but sorry. Please continue.
[00:02:54] KEN OPALO: So, so, you know, the ad meant that I chose as a specific public school that had an aviation program. So I was in the aviation program for two years. And then quit that, because I got more interested in econ and social science and things. And also my dad told me that, you know, pilots are just glorified drivers. So, you know, that put a dent on the plan. But yes, so that
[00:03:16] KATIE AUTH: the pilots are gonna sub de subscribe from your
[00:03:18] KEN OPALO: No, no, no. You know, I think my dad was just trying to make me become a doctor. nothing against pilots. and so, after high school I got, I became an RA to, uh, Michael Chege, who’s an economist at, uh, treasury.
[00:03:32] Uh, so this was a coincidence because the background here is that, uh, I finished high school right around when one of our most famous alumns was president of Kenya, which meant that we had lots of alumns in government and, uh, that included also the treasury here in Nairobi.
[00:03:49] ROSE MUTISO: And this is why
[00:03:50] KEN OPALO: Yes, Mwai Kibaki, Uh, so lots of among old boys in government at the time. And so I end up, , being an RA for Michael Chege looking at, you know, old newspapers in the basement of Macmillan Library here in Nairobi on land reform processes going back to the twenties. so, you know, that got me interested in social science, et cetera. and then, you know. After that, applied to American universities as a way out, partially because a family friend suggested that I do so and when I got into American colleges, including Yale, you know, that became my ticket. So at Yale is actually when I got interested in development. , initially I was going to be a chemical engineer because chemistry was my best subject in high school but then I, uh, I took a organic chemistry for two weeks and, and, and decided that that was not for me. And I think at that point I, you know, I was an anthropology major for a while. I tried physics. I, I think the social sciences were calling and, you know, as much as I tried to avoid them, you know, I was destined. I, I guess to end up there. And so summer of freshman year, I did an internship in Ghana, the hospital just to, I don’t know why I chose this, this program perhaps, you know, the med, the medical school bug, I think was still at the back of my mind. Yeah, so I interned at a hospital in Ghana, which was really the first time. I got introduced to challenges of development, and you know, I think from then on, uh, because you know, growing up in Nairobi it’s easy to get insulated from everything, right? You see it, but it’s part of the background. But in Ghana, you know, being in a totally different place in rural eastern region of Ghana, , that was when I was like, oh yeah. I should, I should try and think of this as a field. , and so when I got back to Yale, you know, I did investment banking, some of , sophomore year as everyone does. you know, that didn’t stick, right?
[00:05:43] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, you decided you don’t like money. You’re like, I want to be a poor
[00:05:48] KEN OPALO: Poor professor and then, you know, but by the end of, so, of, of junior year, right, it was clear that I wanted to go to grad school.
[00:05:55] ROSE MUTISO: , and then to go on to Stanford to do your PhD and, and did you study? Did you study politics?
[00:05:59] KEN OPALO: so, so I got convinced that, you know, problems of underdevelopment were more political than economic in character. , and so, you know, I decided to run away from econ even though I took a lot of econ in undergrad. , although, you know, while at Stanford I took a class with Avner Greif , so you know, if anyone out there has, has read me, you know, pitching econ history, it’s Avner’s fault. He, he convinced me that, you know, economic history is super valuable for everything we do. And so it’s kind of ironic that, since, going to Stanford, right? I found myself also being pushed back into econ even though, you know, I, I was trying very much to run away from econ. So that’s why I’m, uh, in my career. I’ve been this in-between person.
[00:06:42] ROSE MUTISO: Well, I think it’s, it’s, it’s really needed and I, I, I mean, it’s really striking hearing you tell your story back because it’s, we pretty much have the same story. We grew up, I grew up in Nairobi, same time, we’re exactly the same age, went through the public school system. Was expected to be a doctor, tried to run away from it. But I think that, and I mean we even knew each other as
[00:07:01] KEN OPALO: Yeah, overlapped at Strathmore. Shout out to
[00:07:03] ROSE MUTISO: this is, this is a, this is from the archives. This is an exclusive, uh, uh, this is a high energy planet, uh, exclusive. But I remember like Ken sharing some of the poetry he was writing as a teenager. So, , but I think what I’m finding striking about these, just how we grew up in a unique time in Nairobi. When I’m back in Nairobi right now and I see the, the moment that my nieces were sail narobi, for example, are living in, it’s different. Like we had a very usual life, but there was something elevated. We were just surrounded by ambition, ideas, networks, like people who had been professors or, you know what I mean? And, and who, who, you know, who kind of made us feel like you don’t really need to have anything, but yeah. Why not apply to the us?
[00:07:46] KEN OPALO: Oh yeah,
[00:07:46] ROSE MUTISO: I just, I just think that,
[00:07:48] KEN OPALO: You know.
[00:07:49] ROSE MUTISO: and I think that there was something quite, and just that, that thought and ambition are part of our inheritance. And I, I don’t really get that sense that, you know, young Nairobians are growing up with that
[00:07:59] KEN OPALO: I guess, yeah, it felt Nairobi was much smaller. Right. You know, random kid from angle becomes an IRA at Treasury, gets to meet, mandela’s wife, uh, Mrs. Machel at one of the Africa peer review mechanism meetings, was totally starstruck. I didn’t say anything at the meeting, so yes, it was a small, a small end in Nairobi and, you know, in a simpler time. Now everything is, you know, complicated.
[00:08:22] ROSE MUTISO: Grounding us, again, into, into the present. Um, so you’re normally based in Washington, DC or Georgetown, but you’re currently in Nairobi. Um, and you’re spending an extended sabbatical in Nairobi for a year or more.
[00:08:34] And you picked interesting timing because you kind of fled DC just as, uh, US development policy was, falling apart. So how is this time on the ground shifting your perspective on development priorities and what really drives progress in Africa?
[00:08:49] KEN OPALO: yeah, So I, I think you know, the biggest difference at this moment is the sense of crisis. Right. You know, so, you know, I read every now and then I read, you know, the blog, a blog post say from my colleagues at the Center for Global Development. , Justin and Charles have been doing fantastic work, you know, following the numbers, , or, you know, attending a Zoom call where. There’s a lot of, uh, doom and gloom, you know, justifiably so, about what the cuts mean for real people, , and real programs. but then, you know, being here in Nairobi, it’s not part of the conversation, you know, every, at least not part of the everyday conversation. There’s no sense of doom and gloom. Both in, in, in the public discourse, you know, occasionally there’s mention of, you know. What does the, what do the cuts mean for health programming or this and that programming? but, you know, in real conversations with people, , in person or even on WhatsApp groups, it, it’s mentioned in passing, and often, you know, not with the same sense of urgency that, uh, you see out there, which I think, you know, is, should remind us all that we need to have both conversations at the same time. Thinking about, you know, the crisis and the real dent that, you know, the cuts mean, but also the fact that, you know, elites in, in a context like Nairobi , don’t have the same sense of urgency.
[00:10:06] KATIE AUTH: Mm-hmm. That actually feeds into something I was interested in asking, which is, you’re right that, especially for those of us who are in DC in this. World, a lot of the conversation about what’s happening right now to US policy is very self-involved, very self-focused. So it’s about US, impacts US mandates, and those things are important. And certainly like for the colleagues at CGD and for myself, like we’re, we’re not only writing as development professionals, we’re writing as citizens of the United States who are feeling, you know, upset and confused about our own country. So there’s like multiple levels of that. But I was curious, what’s the biggest thing that you think us policymakers and commentators who are thinking about development right now in the US are missing about what’s happening in Africa?
[00:10:59] KEN OPALO: Yeah, well, big, big question. They’re missing several things, but if I were to pick one, I think it’s just this sense, the sense of the fact that, the ambition levels right on the continent are way beyond what DC imagines it is. Right?
[00:11:18] Because if you look at DC right? The conversation is, you know, uh, pepfar, aids medication, you know, malaria, Gavi, uh, food relief, et cetera, right? Uh, conversations on the ground are about, you know, infrastructure, , thinking about aggressive job creation, you know, wanting to immigrate, right?
[00:11:38] , thinking about the gaps between ambition and reality, and not, you know, every day thinking about the most vulnerable people in society for good or bad, right? Because if, if you just look at the numbers, right? , what’s the HIV infection rate in a typical African country, , it’s a share of the, of the population that can be easily ignored by the media and, and, you know, commentators, um.
[00:12:01] Which is not the same as, you know, if, if you are working on, on HIV, that’s your whole world. So if it’s, if it crumbles, you feel like everything is collapsing, but you know, relatively speaking, it’s not the biggest thing happening. right in, in many African countries.
[00:12:16] KATIE AUTH: So given that context, if you were in the Oval Office in the National Security Council and you were in charge of the new revamped Africa strategy for the United States, what’s maybe the one thing that you would tell them to focus on?
[00:12:32] KEN OPALO: , I mean the one word, one word for the one thing would be growth. Right? And of course there are lots of things involving growth, right? I, I, I would insist on. Focusing on growth and, and, and sort of growth that achieves structural change in the long term. Um, that means, you know, thinking more seriously about agriculture, uh, or investments in infrastructure that promote, uh, economic activity, thinking about private sector growth.
[00:12:58] But then of course, also making sure that we don’t let the bottom fall out, or erosion of the gains that we made. Right., I will criticize, you know, several aspects of aid, but you know, it, it’s also undeniable that public health, humanitarian relief, right? Those have been very successful areas that I think the US should still, keep investing in for its own good and for the good of the world.
[00:13:20] ROSE MUTISO: So what do you think? And actually even maybe now from the perspective of the African governments, so you are right that growth, jobs, cost of living. This is front of mind for most Africans, , and for the governments. But what should be the right kind of balance of focus here?
[00:13:37] Because, um, some people might hear you say, let’s focus on growth and infrastructure, but like the, the human toll in terms of the public health disruption, the collapse of PEPFAR is, , is huge. But who is looking out for this public health crisis. , even when, there’s a growth imperative, and this is kind of, this is like the big agenda for Africa. Like what, what is the solution to that?
[00:13:59] KEN OPALO: I think that’s, that’s a good clarifying question because you know, when, when I say growth and when, you know, I think most, most people out there say growth or many people out there say growth, right? It’s not to say that we should neglect all these other things, right? It’s to say that, you know, because I think DC’s bandwidth for Africa is very limited.
[00:14:18] And so, , often, you know, if the focus is on public health, it stops at that as opposed to thinking of, you know, public health improvements are also part of growth. Right. and so what does this mean in practice? It means that, Right now. Right. if you looked at what’s left, in the aid budget, I think if, if everyone was truly committed to making sure that things don’t completely fall apart, , we could get the resources, , to number one, uh, shore up the systems and help in the transition of absorbing those systems into, you know, mainline ministries, the aid systems that were mostly funded by, by donor money.
[00:14:58] Right. There’s still quite a bit of aid money sloshing around in Narobi and you see it, right? that money can be repurposed, uh, to help that transition. And then secondly, I think, I think, you know, governments respond to what donors do. So if a donor is fully supporting food relief in North and Kenya, right?
[00:15:17] That’s some one, one less thing for the government to worry about. So we shouldn’t look at it and say that, you know, oh, you know what will happen if, if the donor doesn’t support food relief? Right. Well, what will happen is that the government will be forced to also think about food relief as part of its many of things to think about.
[00:15:34] Um, and so, you know, the transition will always be scary, I think. Uh, but you know, and I think we should be very, very careful again, because as you say, right, human lives are on the line here. We should be very careful about how that transition is managed. But, um. I think our starting point should be that that transition must happen, uh, as opposed to, you know, being scared about, you know, what, what will happen?
[00:15:58] Because the behavior of states as we see today, is endogenous to the current situation where a lot of what they’re supposed to do gets done by someone else.
[00:16:10] ROSE MUTISO: So actually as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of Kenya as potentially an example of a country that has kind of just even in our lifetimes, has become more self-reliant with regards to, to aid and, and is thus have having a less. Possibly abrupt transition than, say some of the countries like Uganda that you mentioned that , have not made that transition. what has Kenya done right?
[00:16:32] KEN OPALO: I think, I think, yeah, growth, right? Uh, this is why I keep beating the growth drum, right? Growth, which allowed for a lot more revenue. So growth coupled with better revenue generation meant that the budget envelope in Kenya was big enough to absorb, , a lot of what was necessary. So I think, you know, if, if you are Sierra Leone, Liberia, right? 20, 30% of your budget, in critical sectors comes from, you know, donors. It’s, it’s you. You can’t just quit, right? And those countries should get as much help as they need, as they transition. And I should say that even, even, you know, your Liberia and Sierra Leon have been seeing the share of donor funding in their budgets go down.
[00:17:11] So the trends are generally in the right direction. , and then, you know, you have countries like Kenya, uh, even Nigeria, right? Sub 3% of funding. And so those countries, , in my view, should have the money right. So the big worry for, for Kenya and Nigeria and others, is on the systems side?
[00:17:29] That’s actually, that’s the biggest worry for me in a place like Kenya where the systems were still very much donor dependent, uh, in, in critical places. And so even if the money is available, right, the systems might still fail during the
[00:17:43] ROSE MUTISO: Can you, can you explain a little bit what you mean by
[00:17:46] KEN OPALO: So, so, you know, if you, if you think of, say, a program to reduce infant mortality rate. Right. Or, or maternal mortality rates in say, right. , so, you know, typically you’ll have, , specific people who are funded by donors. You wanna keep track of the numbers, right? Collect the data, analyze it, , ongoing training, right? On how to make sure that women are getting screened, for their prenatal care.
[00:18:13] , any, any red flags are addressed on time, right? There’s this a four by four that doubles up as, you know, an ambulance to get women to hospital on time, right? so there’s, there’s, there’s often a donor directed system of keeping tabs on how things get done. ? Now, if you just throw that into a ministry, The ministry perhaps, you know, maybe has always had an ambulance budget, but because there was a four by four, you know, with a donor label on it. Right? That money always wound up elsewhere, not on the four by four. Right? So we can’t just presume that there will be a four by four without the donors. And so, so, so, you know, if you think of like money for fuel to a four by four, right? In a remote part of Isiolo. It’s a small amount of money, right. But it’s critical to achieving the outcomes that, you know, we like to tute as achievements at the macro level. , and so, you know, both in, in such small ways, but also in big ways in terms of, you know, systems at the national level,
[00:19:11] disease, surveillance, the logistics of distributing ARVs, All that, is critically supported by donors and, and I just don’t see governments being able to absorb that immediately.
[00:19:23] KATIE AUTH: So let’s, I want to shift us into the power sector, which is obviously crucial for this, this goal of growth. And you’ve written really compellingly about the ways in which not only donors have struggled in this space, but actually also African elites and government officials have also chronically underinvested in energy systems.
[00:19:48] And as you were just. Talking about, you know, the health sector, for example, it strikes me that like energy and power is very different. It’s not that donors are going in and providing these services. they’re focused on catalyzing private investment. So theoretically, this should be a space where those same disincentives for African governments to support their sectors. Doesn’t play out like it does in health. So I’m curious from your perspective, like what has driven that chronic underinvestment in energy and how do we, how do we overcome it?
[00:20:24] KEN OPALO: At the, at the structural level, right? I think, history of basically suppressed demand because of poverty and all meant that it was always risky to invest in installed capacity if you couldn’t figure out demand. And so, you know, there was always going to be under investment in installed capacity if you couldn’t guarantee demand.
[00:20:46] Then in, in the late nineties, many African governments I think made the mistake of. Basically contracting for super expensive power for decades into the future, , that also introduced a lot of inefficiencies in, in the markets for power. , so thermo power generation, , projects, you know, I don’t know why the World Bank and IFC having found a way of forcing governments to basically tear up these contracts.
[00:21:09] , but you know, that completely distorted the sector. The more recently, right? I think, , African governments have been, some of them at least, have been more aggressive in power generation. , but even then, you know, demand is still not where it’s supposed to be. And then because of the historical and investment in production, there was also an investment in transmission.
[00:21:29] So even if you increase your capacity, the transmission lines are not up to scratch. So you are, you’re still losing a lot of power during transmission and also have, having inbuilt, unreliable supply.
[00:21:41] KATIE AUTH: So it’s interesting. I mean, those are all fairly technical kind of analytic reasons for underinvestment. I thought you were going to mention like, are there any political economy disincentives that you see?
[00:21:55] KEN OPALO: Yeah, so the political economy distance, the biggest that I see right now is, you know, the fact that it’s, easy to make money with a backup supply arrangement to the unreliable grid. I. through thermal generation, so we don’t have enough capacity, or we need, you know, stop gap capacity. So we’ll write a crazy contract, , that, you know, makes a lot of money for our friends and ourselves, which then means that the consumer has to pay a surcharge to pay for this backup, capacity to maintain, supply, during peak periods or, or, or, you know, if the dams are low or whatever. Right? So the pe the most of the PE I think is in this structural sort of costing side. And then, you know, I think, I think the, the other in, in, in a few countries, like, like Kenya, where the government did.
[00:22:43] A big rollout of increasing connectivity. There’s also the, the politics side, which is, uh, we want to, you know, extend power to the rural areas, but we are not willing to charge them a market rate for the extension. And so we load up the transmission or generation companies with debt. so that’s another problem.
[00:23:01] But I think the bigger problem is on the, on the production side.
[00:23:04] KATIE AUTH: Yeah. we would be remiss if we didn’t plug the hub’s, , contract transparency work right now because I agree that, the lack of transparency around what these contracts entail feeds a lot of either disincentives or just prevents you from being able to understand the incentives that are actually playing out. And so we actually have, in many cases, a real lack of insight into what’s driving decisions and what’s kind of
[00:23:30] driving this. But yeah, please keep pushing on that. Keep pushing on that.
[00:23:34] ROSE MUTISO: So looking at Kenya specifically, president Ruto has positioned himself as a global challenge champion of green growth but obviously at home he’s grappling with economic pressure and growing public discontent over the cost of living and just, just the incredible economic pain that Kenyans are going through right now. So, which parts, if any of this green agenda, do you think are, you know, can deliver something for the ordinary mwananchi. How do you connect this up?
[00:24:02] KEN OPALO: so, you know, I think, I come at this mostly from a position of skepticism, in the sense that, you know, I think there’s, there’s a world in which, uh, a politician in a country like Kenya is actually sincerely pro green growth, where we do a lot of hydro, geothermal, wind and solar up north. and then, you know, have proper, , battery and transmission infrastructure to green the economy. What I see in practice however, is people willing to play financial financialization games and stop at that. and, and I think that’s a problem because, green growth in Africa often means , keeping land follow, so that we can get the carbon credit.
[00:24:43] End of story. And the money generated from the carbon credits never gets to the people on the ground, right? They get consumed by management, uh, et cetera. And then, you know, there gets some random projects in there. and so, you know, if you look at what’s happening in Northcentral Kenya, right? That’s a testing ground for, you know, what it means to, on the one hand, you know, have very nice pitches about selling carbon credits to your Facebooks, et cetera. While on the ground, people are, you know, hours away from hospitals, no running water, all kinds of bad things happening. So because of that, I come at this from, you know, a position of skepticism about
[00:25:20] what that means. In reality, I.
[00:25:21] ROSE MUTISO: I, I share that with you. and I think that you’re right, that is a big part of the big green agenda right now, , under ruto is this kind of carbon markets fascination. I get that. But it seems like there’s a different part, like the industrialization part where it’s, okay, let’s build an industrial park around all cardiac geothermal, and I don’t know, Microsoft will build a big data center. And somehow that will a happen and B,
[00:25:46] KEN OPALO: Yeah. Oh yeah. And yes, so there’s also that, right? There’s also often these pie in the sky ideas about what greening means, As opposed to thinking of, you know, what are we trying to solve for as a country, right? What are we, what we, what we are trying to solve for is have lots of cheap and reliable power supply so that we can have, everyone from, you know, the salons to the metal smelters getting power guaranteed,
[00:26:13] the amount of investments one needs, right? Uh, having a power bank at home that can power your refrigerator when the power goes off, right? It’s. Or a generator, right? It’s, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of crazy that, uh, we’ve accepted this as, just normal. , and that, you know, when tasked with generating power, elites run to this gimmicky, things, right? And so energy for industrialization or energy for, , a working economy means exactly that. , and, and so the challenge I think should be for anyone interested in green, energy production, Uh, the question should be what are we solving for?
[00:26:51] Uh, because Kenya Kenya’s carbon emissions right, are negligible in the grand scheme of things. And so it would be weird to saddle Kenyan’s with the burden of, of, of fixing the planet, , when, you know, the people whose emissions can actually make a dent, are not doing that and so I think, I think at the idea side, we need to push more so that elite in low income countries understand that, , adaptation should be top of the list, right? Because they will be experiencing climate change like everyone else. And then, you know, to the extent that they can, yes, they should do some mitigation, but it should never come at the expense of actual growth. and, you know, if they have to do it, they have to also lean on high income countries to share the, the tech and the money to pay for it.
[00:27:35] otherwise, you know, , they’ll end up with fallow land, carbon credits, lots of financialization by companies based elsewhere, and very little to show for it.
[00:27:46] ROSE MUTISO: I want to kind of press a bit more on the politics, which is your specialty. So are elites in Africa really interested in growth? you know, because everything you’re saying makes sense to us from this technocratic lens. But politically, uh, there seems to be a disconnect, like in terms of incentives. So the elites I think probably would be happy to repeat everything you’ve said and agree with it, and that’s their position.
[00:28:10] But you know, still there’s underinvestment still, there’s all of this dysfunction. it seems like we have the script for growth, but there’s something, there’s something that’s missing and I, my feeling is that it’s, in terms of political incentives, what, do you make of
[00:28:24] KEN OPALO: Yeah. I mean, I, I think, I think it’s, it’s, partly precent, but also ideas. I think elites on the continent definitely want growth. , when you talk to them, they, they, they try. Right now, the, the problem in my view is that. and here I’m gonna be sympathetic to African elites. Uh, forgive me. Um, the, the problem.
[00:28:46] Yeah. Yeah. I think we, we should try and see things from their perspective. I think the problem they have is that, you know, they, they’re stuck in this in between whereby, the ideas about what produces growth are almost always sort of fundamentally opposed to their own interests as leads, so, so, because if you, if you go to say Cameroon, right? uh, the pitch for how to get Cameroon going is to get Paul Bia out of power, right? That’s never gonna fly. Right. If you Paul B. Right? So I think, at the idea level, ideas level, I think they need, we need to understand that perhaps we should be trying to think of how could we align the growth agenda.
[00:29:26] To the incentives, which wouldn’t be unusual, right? All over the world, economic performance is often aligned with the incentives of the most powerful people, Growth in the US growth in China is very much aligned with the interests of the most powerful people. And so it’s, it’s always struck me as odd that when it comes to Africa, right?
[00:29:43] Most of the ideas that we think of as the best ideas are often ideas that are completely opposed to the interest of the structural elites. that’s, that would be my sort of sympathy. , and so, so for them, right, what they end up doing is , they, they halfass the growth agenda in part because, you know, it’s not aligned to their interests.
[00:30:02] ROSE MUTISO: Mm-hmm. So say what you need to say to make the donors happy, behind the scenes you are. you own the, like, uh, diesel import exports generator business that is re requires a, a failing
[00:30:13] KEN OPALO: Yeah, so, so I think , hopefully, one of my contributions before I retire will be to convince everyone to have honest conversations , and, and force everyone to agree that, you know, it’s okay, , that in Africa, like elsewhere, right? elites matter and, and you know, we shouldn’t always imagine that they should get out of the way for good things to happen.
[00:30:32] KATIE AUTH: So, to bring it back to development policy. Just very quickly before we close, I mean, you could argue that in some ways the shift that’s happening right now, a lot of it is along the lines that you’re advocating for. There’s going to be on the US side, much less focus on climate action around the world. there’s likely to be much more focus on financing infrastructure through the development finance corporation and on a much more kind of private sector transactionary basis, still to be determined certainly what that ends up looking like. What’s your mix of optimism in this moment for perhaps moving in a good direction. And what are you maybe most concerned about in specifically in the energy sector?
[00:31:19] KEN OPALO: I think what I’m most concerned about is that, , we get, you know, a global recession that just kills, a lot of the post covid momentum. Right. I mean, I know things are, things are not great in many countries given the hangovers from the inflationary, sort of covid inflationary
[00:31:37] period. But at the same time, you know, a lot of African countries are growing 3, 4, 5, 6%, .
[00:31:42] And a global slowdown would completely crush that. which would then, you know, snuff out any momentum for investments in power generation, or in infrastructure more broadly. So that you have even, you know, so Kenya in its very chaotic way, has avoided default, is aggressively trying to, again, in, in one of the messiest ways possible, trying to get to a place of, you know, fiscal stability, right?
[00:32:11] Uh, in fits and starts, but it is moving, right? You know, overall things are moving in the right direction So
[00:32:17] far. . So a, a, a complete recession would just stall all of that, right? And, then, you know, completely worse than everything else. That’s already bad. so I mean, the downside risk is real and, and that’s what I’m most worried about. , what I’m most optimistic about actually is that the ideas level, because I think, I think, for a long time, the sort of background expectation that the good ideas will come from elsewhere on the continent, but also beyond, right?
[00:32:44] Shattering that illusion, I think is a good thing for everyone involved so that, you know, people get the sense that nobody’s coming to save you, think through your problems. Yes, you can partner with others, but on your own agenda. , I think that’s, , at a, at a high level, that’s what I’m most optimistic about.
[00:33:01] Seeing people right finally start to see, problems or what for what they are, as opposed to always trying to fix or pigeonhole the problems in the context of
[00:33:11] ROSE MUTISO: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:12] KEN OPALO: that happen elsewhere.
[00:33:13] KATIE AUTH: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:13] ROSE MUTISO: And global agendas. Well I think that’s like an excellent note to end the main part of the interview on. And I think something that, , we here at the hub you know, have been excited about for a long time is just the question of agency and agenda setting.
[00:33:27] alright, So now we are gonna, ask our kind of closing question of the main interview. We ask every, um. Guest this question. This is interesting because, um, I’ve known you from when you’re quite young, so I’ll be able to like fact check your answer, so, ken, what has changed the most about you since you started this work?
[00:33:46] KEN OPALO: Wow. What has changed the most about me since I studied this work? , I think, to be honest with you, I think, I think I’ve become more optimistic about Africa’s prospects or African countries prospects. I feel like, you know, I’m always the hype man these days in, in all
[00:34:05] KATIE AUTH: We need one.
[00:34:08] ROSE MUTISO: well, I feel like you are like a very, like, hard truths hype man. It’s not, it’s not like fluffy. It’s not like
[00:34:13] KEN OPALO: Yeah. I’m always like, you know, hear the hard truths, but, you know, things are getting better. But we need to, you know, know the hard truths because I, I think, back then, or, you know, I remember in college or even grad school, right, there was this sense of, you know, , things are getting bad, things could get worse.
[00:34:30] But, the more you look at the data, you know, the more you realize that, you know, things are generally moving in the right direction. There’s nothing unique about low income countries. They can,
[00:34:40] uh, grow and, and move on to be, um, better run places, uh, that afford their people the best outcomes possible.
[00:34:49] ROSE MUTISO: Well that’s, that’s, that’s great to hear. And I think, hopefully that optimism rubs off on us and our listeners.
[00:34:54] KATIE AUTH: I was gonna say I’d like to borrow some of that, not about Africa, but about my own country.
[00:34:58] KEN OPALO: Yeah. Even in your own country, right? You know, look at Wisconsin, right? There’s hope.
[00:35:02] Yeah. You know, optimism.
[00:35:07] KATIE AUTH: Now it’s time to play short circuit, a rapid fire round of some serious, but mostly silly questions. Are you ready, Ken?
[00:35:14] KEN OPALO: I’m ready.
[00:35:15] ROSE MUTISO: All right. So who is your favorite Lingala musician?
[00:35:18] KEN OPALO: Fali, pupa,
[00:35:19] ROSE MUTISO: Okay, that’s a good one. That’s a classic.
[00:35:21] KATIE AUTH: What is, in your opinion, the most underrated African city?
[00:35:25] KEN OPALO: Nairobi. Of course,
[00:35:26] KATIE AUTH: What.
[00:35:27] ROSE MUTISO: Really, I feel, I feel like it’s super rated, super pumped up
[00:35:31] KEN OPALO: despite all that, Nairobi is still terribly underrated. Come visit
[00:35:34] Nairobi everyone.
[00:35:35] KATIE AUTH: is being paid by the tourism board clearly.
[00:35:38] ROSE MUTISO: I mean, I’m from, I mean, I love Nairobi, but I’m like, if there’s one city that gets a lot of airtime, but, okay. Yes, Nairobi. Okay, next question. One piece of advice for young scholars studying African development.
[00:35:49] KEN OPALO: Yeah. Uh, get to know one specific African country, at least one specific African country very, very well.
[00:35:56] ROSE MUTISO: Maybe, maybe Nairobi.
[00:35:58] Start with Nairobi and with Nairobi. I learn Kenya, although I would recommend Tanzania for that, not not Kenya.
[00:36:04] Okay. That, that. We can’t leave it
[00:36:05] there. Why so?
[00:36:06] KEN OPALO: yes. yes. Tanzania, I think is a, is a much more interesting place to study. Super complex, but not in a hyper way like Kenya, and offers
[00:36:14] real lessons,
[00:36:15] ROSE MUTISO: Okay. That’s it. We can’t wait to get the listener mail of all of the hundreds of thousands who kind of ended up going to Tanzania, because of this interview.
[00:36:22] KEN OPALO: Tanzania, but pass through Kenya is the message here.
[00:36:25] ROSE MUTISO: okay,
[00:36:26] KATIE AUTH: okay, this is a fill in the blank question. The future of African industrialization hinges on blank.
[00:36:33] KEN OPALO: Fixing agriculture.
[00:36:35] ROSE MUTISO: Interesting. And we didn’t even get to agriculture. So that’s for the, the next episode. Okay. Final one. What is one book you wish every African politician would read? And it
[00:36:44] KEN OPALO: Uh, okay. Uh, no. No. Uh, it’s, uh, Africa Must Be Modern philosopher at Cornell, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò. It’s, it’s a, it’s a very
[00:36:52] good book.
[00:36:53] KATIE AUTH: fantastic.
[00:36:54] ROSE MUTISO: That’s a good one. Now we have a bonus question from our previous guest. Kika. Chala and Sheik said we spend so much time focused on mobilizing capital for the energy transition capital for infrastructure for various investments. We spend far less on the human capital that will be needed to deliver it. How should we be thinking about workforce development as a core part of energy growth in Africa?
[00:37:24] KEN OPALO: Wow, that’s, yeah, that’s a big one. I think. I think, , fixing education, , especially higher education. , at a structural level is, is, is terribly underrated, as a way of, doing, you know, , what we need in terms of energy transition. I’m, I’m currently working on a post on, stem , students in Kenyan universities, and the numbers basically collapsed in the eighties and never recovered. , as, as a proportion of, of of total students, , so, you know, rose should come back and teach material science, uh to, to, uh, Kenyan, uh, students because yeah, if you undersupply the tech side, right, everything else will not make sense. And, I don’t know if you have the time for this, but you know, let me riff for a second.
[00:38:05] I have a friend who keeps complaining about, you know, how AI gets talked about in the African context. So, you know, , in many other places, right, it’s very tech oriented. , talking about both the hardware and software in Africa, it’s something like, you know, youth and ai, you know, very fluffy stuff, right? Which I guess, you know, suggests that the tech side isn’t up to scratch yet.
[00:38:25] ROSE MUTISO: I have a new piece about this, about AI in Africa that is exactly this, that we need more sophistication in how we think about it. And you’re right, it’s because it’s these kind of development, blah, blah, blah. People that are driving the kind of the African positions on AI, and that’s completely the wrong people who should be in those rooms.
[00:38:44] But, um, thank you so much for being here with us. We really appreciate it. We really value your insight. We, I think just having a super rigorous, credible, heavy lifting thinker, uh, speaking from an African perspective is hugely invaluable. So just keep, keep going and while you’re in Nairobi, just kind of create some clones while you’re at it.
[00:39:08] KEN OPALO: We’ll
[00:39:08] try and thank, thank you for the kind words. So that’s it for today’s show. High Energy Planet is a production of the energy for growth hub, matching policy makers with evidence-based pathways to a high energy future. For everyone, find out more@energyforgrowth.org and share your questions and thoughts with us at Energy for Growth on X and LinkedIn.
[00:39:32] KATIE AUTH: And if you like today’s episode, be sure to rate and review the podcast and tell a friend about us. Audrey Zenner is our senior producer. Join us next time for more high energy planet.