The Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission (LASERC) has granted licensing approval to Isolo Power Gen Limited to develop a 9MW embedded power generation project in the State.

Located on 110/114 Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, Isolo, Lagos, Isolo Power Gen is owned by Westfield Assets Limited (British Virgin Islands), Camara Exim Limited (British Virgin Islands), Chellarams Plc, and Suresh Chellaram.

The company is one of 14 licensees recently approved by LASERC, but the only operator cleared under the embedded generation category for a 9MW project in this round.

The facility when completed will serve Isolo and the surrounding areas, supporting Lagos State’s ongoing push to decentralise electricity supply and improve power reliability across industrial and residential corridors.

Image:UNCTAD Acting Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno

Pedro Manuel Moreno, Deputy Secretary-General and Acting Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that Gross domestic product, or GDP, is not enough if people are better off in an economy.

“GDP measures the value of goods and services produced in an economy. It has long been treated as the world’s scoreboard for progress. But a growing economy can still leave people poorer in security, trust, opportunity and hope,” Moreno said in a report on the unctad website.

The report argues that governments need a broader way to judge whether development is working. It does not call for replacing GDP. It calls for complementing it with a practical dashboard that captures what GDP misses: well-being, equity, sustainability and resilience.

Growth is not the whole story

Between 1980 and 2025, global economic activity contracted only twice: During the 2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. By GDP’s measure, the world has rarely been richer.

Yet trust in institutions has eroded, inequality has widened in many places and environmental pressures have intensified.

In some wealthy countries, young people report high levels of anxiety and isolation. The gap between economic output and lived experience is becoming harder to ignore.

“What we measure shapes what we value. That is the question this work now places squarely on the international agenda, ”said Moreno.

A dashboard for the real economy

The report proposes 31 indicators built around four areas: Peace, human rights and respect for the planet; current well-being; equity and inclusion; and sustainability and resilience.

The dashboard would track material conditions, health, education, social cohesion, institutional quality, environmental conditions, poverty, inequality and the assets societies pass to future generations – including produced, human, social, institutional and natural capital.

It is designed to be country-owned, so governments can adapt it to national priorities and capacities.

Close to half of the indicators are drawn from the Sustainable Development Goals, meaning many countries already have data systems in place.

Why it matters now

Unlike earlier Beyond GDP efforts, this report comes with a political track.

It was produced in response to a direct request from Member States under the Pact for the Future and will now move into an intergovernmental process at the General Assembly, led by Spain and Guyana.It also recognizes that progress does not stop at borders.

One country’s well-being can be shaped by decisions made elsewhere — through emissions, trade, finance, technology and supply chains.

UNCTAD, together with the UN Development Programme and partners across the UN system, will support countries that choose to begin testing the framework.

“GDP tells us how fast an economy is growing. It does not tell us where we are headed, what we pass on the way, or what we leave behind for the next generation,” Mr Moreno said.

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest industrialist, has stated that he is eyeing Kenya as the site of a huge $17 billion 650,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery he plans to build in east Africa, after questions over a previous push to build the facility in Tanzania.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan last week complained angrily to her Kenyan counterpart William Ruto that she had not been consulted over the earlier plan to build it on her country’s coastline, which was announced in her absence last month at an infrastructure summit.

“I’m leaning more towards Mombasa because Mombasa has a much larger, deeper port,” he told Financial Times in an interview.

He compared Kenya’s port to Tanga, the proposed Tanzanian site for the refinery to process oil from Uganda and the open market.

Dangote estimated it would cost $15 billion to $17 billion to build.“Kenyans consume more.

It’s a bigger economy,” he said, adding that crude oil for the refinery could be transported by ship and need not be located near a pipeline that will carry oil nearly 1,500 kilometres from Ugandan oilfields to the Tanzanian coast at Tanga.“The ball is in the hands of President Ruto,” he said.

“Whatever President Ruto says is what I’ll do,” the Nigerian billionaire added. For the east African refinery to get off the ground, Dangote said, he would need Ruto to offer land, some east African finance and, most important, protection from what he called dumping of cheap fuel from the likes of Russia or India.

“There is no refinery in the world that can survive without that protection,” he said. “If we have an agreement, we can start this year,” he explained. He told the FT he could still build the refinery in Tanzania “if they are able to sort themselves out”.