Many buildings in Africa have their own fossil fuel electric generators. Reliable electricity removes the need for those, which does reduce emissions immediately.
Furthermore, improving people's lives empowers them to help reduce emissions (or increase them). Reliable electricity frees up labor for things like washing clothes or cooking, which they can then use to work on, for example, regenerative agriculture like the Great Green Wall, which captures CO2 and further reduces the production of CO2 and chemical pollution from extensive farming practices.
Nothing is going to beat high speed rail for convenience, price, and comfort. Just like cars, overland personal airplanes aren't about convenience or "having a point", they're a hobby. Though in case of cars the hobby got forced on everyone by a literal conspiracy of xenophobes and the ultra-rich.