Power Africa Summit will be held in Washington D.C. from 27-29 January 2016

Ama has changed enormously over the past 10 years, with an emerging middle class promoting growing consumer power - an area the likes of Coca Cola and others know all too well. Other conglomerates are now starting to follow suit including cosmetics giant Estee Lauder, who aims to increase global sales by tapping into the billion person population with an increasing disposable income.

This consumer market is a reflection of the energy consumption of African nations and how, even though still a long way off achieving a 'base-load', the increase in energy access is already changing the outlook for so many highly employable young men and women.

The growth of this consumer market provides significant opportunities for investors such as private equity funds who understand the potential in Africa, especially in areas such as energy access and ICT.

The most notable of these are Blackstone, KKR, the Abraaj Group and the Carlyle Group, who have invested billions of dollars in pursuit of cornerstone energy projects that will draw directly on the spending power of the consumer. Regions such as the GCC or Africa's own telecoms success demonstrate the scale of the opportunity in countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. The key differentiator between Africa and the GCC is that Africa has a local market economy of hundreds of millions of people which, within 20 years, will change the global consumer purchasing map forever.

The Powering Africa: Summit is a meeting place to enable dialogue between public and private sector decision-makers across the US and Africa, promoting the investment opportunities in Africa's power sector. Those attending will include Ministers of Energy from Africa, heads of African utilities and regulatory bodies, US-based private equity houses and wealth management establishments.

Veronica Bolton-Smith, Programme Manager for the Powering Africa: Summit, commented: "The people contributing are long standing investors with both operational projects as well as a significant project pipeline. The 150 plus stakeholders attending from 12 countries across Africa are equally credible, with a long history of international partnerships and project success - this gathering of project owners and investors is certainly what makes the Summit so exciting and a must attend meeting for those with the ability to play a role."

Tesla, General Electric and Caterpillar are among the world leading US companies that will join heads of Africa's leading Utilities, Ministers of Energy and Finance, and senior government officials who will lay out investment strategies and announce new project partnership opportunities in one of the world's fastest growing economies."

Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of EnergyNet.