India, Dec. 11 -- African countries are witnessing a slowdown in coal power development, mirroring the global shift to the use of clean energy sources such as hydropower and solar, a new United Nations report has found.

The continent's nations have, since 2016, been abandoning coal as a source of power in favour of cleaner alternatives. Renewables now account for 15 per cent of their sources of energy - lower than Brazil's 50 per cent, but significantly higher than 0.7 per cent for fossil-rich West Asia.

Africa also generated about 23 per cent of its electricity from renewables, a significant amount compared to 3.5 per cent by countries in West Asia, but even lower compared to 87.7 per cent of the electricity from the same sources produ...