Fostering Dialogue around the Electricity Act 2023

On October 25, 2023, Credo Advisory provided communications support for a milestone roundtable on Nigeria’s Electricity Act 2023. The Roundtable was jointly convened by the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF) and the British High Commission and implemented by the United Kingdom Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (UKNIAF).

The Roundtable, themed ‘The Electricity Act 2023: Implications and Opportunities for State Electricity Markets,’ aimed to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats linked to the new Electricity Act 2023 and strategies for navigating these challenges.

Keynote speakers included His Excellency, Governor Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman, Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum and Deputy High Commissioner, Gill Atkinson. Representatives from federal and state governments, private sector and industry operatives also attended the dialogue session. The donor community were represented by attendees from Development Finance Institutions, the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, and the African Development Bank among others.

The event featured keynote papers by technical experts and panel discussions with industry professionals. Highlights from the event included the launch of the Women on the Grid Hub (WotGH), an initiative that unites women in key roles in generation, transmission, distribution, policy making, and regulation. Roundtable sessions and discussions emphasised the need for context-specific approaches that accommodate the unique challenges and limitations of states and the need to create the enabling environment to attract investment.

Outcomes from the Roundtable included an agreement on the need for State-level collaboration to ensure cohesive implementation of the Electricity Act. Industry experts and sector stakeholders emphasized key drivers for advancing the Electricity Act. The drivers included an organized transition, stakeholder engagement, market coordination and governance, and regional collaboration. Some identified next steps for States include the development of transition roadmaps based on contextual stocktake exercises, deploying broad-based professional expertise to build sector capacity, and identifying clear state-level market structures.

Credo Advisory provided critical event communications advisory and services to the UKNIAF programme team. The scope of our technical assistance included, media management and relations, social media advisory and strategy development, content development, photography and videography. As a communications consultancy firm committed to the Sustainable Development Goal #7 (Energy Access), we are committed to supporting our partners in fostering stakeholder engagement, dialogue, and public awareness to promote energy access and transition.