Ghana’s Push To Join BRICS: An Analysis Through The Energy Lens (1)

The Writer

There is an old saying that you should not put all your eggs in one basket especially if you are not the one carrying the basket. For Ghana, this is increasingly relevant when it comes to financing its development and energy ambitions.

Ghana’s push to join BRICS should, therefore, be viewed not simply as a foreign policy decision, but as an opportunity to broaden the country’s economic and energy financing options.

The real value of deeper engagement with BRICS will ultimately depend on whether Ghana can translate diplomatic relationships into capital, technology, investment and markets.

A particularly important institution in this regard is the New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS led multilateral development bank, which could provide another source of long term development finance alongside Ghana’s existing financing mix.

What the NDB Brings to Ghana’s Energy Capital Stack

The reality is fairly straightforward: Ghana’s energy sector has a material financing gap. The capital requirement is significant across generation, transmission and distribution, gas infrastructure, petroleum storage and logistics, renewables, energy efficiency, and newer areas such as battery storage and electric mobility. At the same time, fiscal headroom is constrained, limiting Government’s capacity to continue funding large-scale energy infrastructure directly. The opportunity, therefore, is less about finding more public money and more about mobilising private and institutional capital around a credible, investable pipeline of energy projects.

The NDB could therefore provide Ghana with an additional financing channel rather than a replacement for existing development partners. Its potential value lies in expanding the pool of institutions from which Ghana can mobilise long-term capital for infrastructure projects.

This is particularly relevant for projects that require substantial upfront investment and have long economic lives. Transmission networks, renewable energy projects, energy storage systems, gas infrastructure, petroleum logistics and regional energy infrastructure could potentially benefit from development-finance structures that combine longer tenors with appropriate risk allocation.

For Ghana, the strategic importance is therefore not simply access to another lender. It is the ability to create greater competition and choice within its development finance ecosystem. Financing from the NDB could sit alongside funding from the World Bank, African Development Bank, IFC, bilateral development agencies, commercial banks and institutional investors. A broader financing base would strengthen Ghana’s ability to structure projects around the most competitive combination of cost, tenor, risk sharing and technical expertise.

From Money on the Table to Projects That Can Close

However, NDB access, on its own, does not close Ghana’s energy financing gap. The real constraint is whether Ghana can originate a sufficiently deep pipeline of bankable, investment-ready projects with credible sponsors, robust cash flows, clear risk allocation and the institutional framework required to get capital comfortably across the line.

In my view, Ghana should use its engagement with BRICS to build a credible pipeline of investment-ready energy projects that can meet international investment standards.

The focus should be on projects with clear commercial fundamentals, bankable structures and defined risk allocation from renewable generation and storage to transmission, gas processing and transportation, petroleum storage, pipelines, energy efficiency and regional energy infrastructure. The objective is simple: move from a list of projects to a pipeline that can actually attract and deploy capital.

Energy Security and the Strategic Capital Opportunity

Ghana’s energy challenge is not simply a financing problem. The bigger equation is reliability, affordability and security of supply, while simultaneously positioning the energy system for a lower carbon future.

This is where deeper engagement with BRICS could become strategically useful. Collectively, BRICS economies bring substantial experience and capabilities across oil and gas, power generation, renewables, electric mobility, biofuels, battery storage and other emerging technologies.

For Ghana, the opportunity is to leverage these relationships not just for capital, but for technology, expertise and strategic optionality broadening the pool of partners available to help deliver a more secure, competitive and resilient energy system.

The strategic benefit is ultimately greater choice and options. Ghana should be in a position to select financing partners, technology providers and project solutions based on cost, suitability and long term value not simply because the alternatives are limited. In capital markets terms, the objective is to widen the opportunity set and improve Ghana’s negotiating leverage.

The Downstream Petroleum Opportunity

The downstream petroleum sector presents another area where BRICS engagement could have practical value.

Ghana’s coastal location, petroleum infrastructure and access to the wider West African market provide the foundation for developing a stronger regional petroleum trading, storage and distribution platform. Investment in storage terminals, pipelines, marine infrastructure, refining and product logistics could increase Ghana’s ability to capture value from regional energy demand.

Development finance becomes particularly valuable where the economic and strategic returns are clear, but the commercial returns alone may not be sufficient to get a conventional financing committee comfortable. It can help bridge that gap, particularly for infrastructure with significant regional, developmental or system-wide benefits that may not be fully captured in the project’s standalone cash flows.

I believe strongly that this opportunity also needs to be viewed alongside the African Continental Free Trade Area. Ghana’s objective should not simply be to meet domestic petroleum demand, but increasingly to position its infrastructure to serve a wider West African market.

Positioning for the Energy Transition

BRICS engagement should also be viewed through the lens of the next energy investment cycle. Ghana’s own investment requirement is substantial: the IMF estimates that the country needs about US$4.4 billion of energy sector investment between 2025 and 2030, with roughly US$2.6 billion expected to come from private sources. That makes the mobilisation of private capital, technology and strategic partnerships increasingly important.

The scale of the global transition is equally telling. Global investment in electricity generation, grids and storage is expected to reach around US$1.5 trillion in 2025, while solar alone accounts for approximately US$450 billion and battery storage another US$66 billion. The energy transition is therefore no longer a niche climate story; it is becoming a major infrastructure and capital allocation theme.

BRICS economies are sitting squarely in that opportunity. China accounted for almost 75% of global electric vehicle production in 2025, producing around 16 million EVs, while more than 13 million electric cars were sold in China, representing almost 55% of new car sales. Brazil offers an equally relevant case study for Ghana’s alternative fuels ambitions: its total ethanol production reached approximately 36.2 billion litres in 2025, the second highest level on record.

For Ghana, the opportunity is therefore bigger than simply securing financing. It is about accessing the capital, technology and operating know-how behind markets that are already operating at scale. The strategic objective should be to use BRICS relationships to shorten Ghana’s learning curve, accelerate commercially viable projects and position the country to participate in the next generation of energy infrastructure from solar and storage to EVs, ethanol and other alternative fuels.

The objective, however, should not be to simply import technology. The greater opportunity is to use investment partnerships to develop Ghanaian capabilities.

Technology Transfer and Local Value Creation

At the risk of sounding clichéd, local value creation is a point that bears repeating. It has been said many times in policy and investment circles, but the numbers show why it matters.

Egypt, which joined BRICS in 2024, saw trade with BRICS countries increase from US$45 billion in 2024 to US$53.5 billion in 2025, while Egyptian exports to the bloc rose by almost 46% to US$13.8 billion. More importantly for Ghana, BRICS-related investment has increasingly targeted industry, energy, infrastructure and technology, rather than simply trade in commodities.

Ethiopia provides another interesting case. In its 2025/26 fiscal year, the country attracted approximately US$4.4 billion in foreign direct investment, with manufacturing, renewable energy, logistics and other productive sectors among the priority areas. At its 2026 investment forum, Ethiopia announced approximately US$13.1 billion in investment agreements, with the government explicitly highlighting the need to translate these commitments into quality jobs, technology transfer, stronger local value chains and export growth.

The lesson for Ghana is fairly simple: BRICS engagement should not be measured only by how much foreign capital comes in, but by how much economic capacity stays behind. That means structuring investments to deepen local supply chains, build technical skills, develop Ghanaian businesses and progressively move from being a recipient of technology to becoming a participant in its development and deployment.

**By: Robert Carl Nuacoo Nunoo, General Manager, Green Transition and Alternative Fuels, BOST Energies **

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