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Abstract
The paper empirically examined energy diversification in Africa. Although Africa is endowed
with abundant energy resources, their accessibility, efficiency and affordability are far-fetched.
This is paradoxical, a situation of scarcity in the midst of plenty. A cross sectional panel data
sourced from World Development Indicators (WDI), International Monetary Bank (IMF) and
World Bank were used to examine five selected African countries, one from each region of the
continent. In this paper, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which represents economic growth
stood as proxy for Energy diversification – the dependent variable while Renewable Energy
(RE), Nonrenewable Energy (NRE), Gross National Expenditure (GNE), Trade Openness
(TOP) and Population (POP) were the explanatory variables. The panel estimation techniques
employed in this study were the fixed effect model and the Random effect model and thereafter,
the Hausman test was performed to ascertain whether to adopt the fixed effect model or the
Random effect model. The Hausman test confirmed that the fixed effect model is more
preferable. Some of the major findings of the study include that RE & NRE exhibited both
positive but insignificant relationship with economic growth while GNE & TOP were both
positive and significant. Population however impacted negatively and insignificantly to
economic growth in the selected countries. The paper recommended that the government
should increase the availability and affordability of abundant RE resources through increased
energy diversification.