Climate Change and Economic Development in Africa : a Systematic Review of Energy Transition Research

African countries face a dual challenge of building broad-based prosperity for their citizens amidst the threat of climate change. The research has typically considered them separately. This paper reviews the state of the knowledge on energy transition modeling and projections in Africa, with special attention to the development imperatives and the commitment to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. We analyzed 156 peer reviewed research papers that cover part or the whole of Africa, concerned with the issue of the energy transition, and that are model-based or scenario-based. Our analysis reveals among other things that i) Energy transition modeling is a recent but fast-growing phenomenon in Africa, with over 90% of papers completed after the Paris Agreement in 2015, ii) projection of energy mixes and the emissions paths are the key objective in general, with only 10% of the papers that also considered development outcomes as a central outcome, iii) technologies such as carbon capture, nuclear, or hydrogen, are among the least considered, and iv) nearly two-third of the research was produced without an author based on the African continent. We discuss the significance of these findings and reflect on the way forward to tackling climate challenges and the socio-economic development