WORKING PAPER
LINKING ELECTRICITY ACCESS AND DEVELOPMENT
OUTCOMES IN AFRICA: A FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION
LILY ODARNO
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Highlights
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In this decade of action for delivering the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), the ability of African
governments to meet ambitious goals in poverty
reduction, health care delivery, education, and other
services that depend on access to electricity will be
severely compromised if adequate action is not taken to
ensure that affordable and reliable supplies of electricity
are available to power critical development services.
Electricity service delivery, in turn, requires sustained
demand from development sectors to thrive. Despite
these interdependencies, electricity and development
sector goals in Africa are largely pursued in isolation
from one another.
Emerging interest in “nexus issues” on both
local and global levels, the growing acceptance of
decentralized energy technologies for electricity
access, increasing domestic finance and the ongoing
data revolution, among others, are creating new and
exciting opportunities for us to better link energy and
development efforts.
This paper proposes a framework that energy and
development sector actors, specifically, African
governments (their line ministries, lead energy
agencies, and local governments), the international
development community, private sector, and civil
society can rally around to collectively shape a linked
energy and development agenda to facilitate the
attainment of the SDGs.
CONTENTS
Executive Summary .......................................1
Energy and Development ................................ 5
Working across Sectors .................................. 8
Building the Ecosystem for a Linked Energy and
Development Agenda .................................. 11
Toward a Linked Vision...................................17
List of Abbreviations .....................................22
Endnotes..................................................23
References ...............................................23
Working Papers contain preliminary research, analysis,
findings, and recommendations. They are circulated to
stimulate timely discussion and critical feedback, and to
influence ongoing debate on emerging issues. Working
papers may eventually be published in another form and
their content may be revised.
Suggested Citation: Odarno, L. 2020. “Linking Electricity
Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for
Action.” Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Resources
Institute. Available online at www.wri.org/publication/linkingelectricity-access-development.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 1
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A supportive ecosystem for a linked agenda will
require global ambition and engagement, evidence
building on local levels, policy and institutional
alignment on national levels, and the restructuring of
development finance.
Background
The SDGs and their focus on nexus issues have revitalized
the interest of African governments and the broader
development community in the interconnectedness of the
various strands of development. Among several important
dialogues that are emerging is renewed interest in the
role of electricity in facilitating the delivery of outcomes
in health, education, agriculture, poverty reduction,
and other development sectors. Vaccine storage, the
use of electronic teaching aids in classrooms, and water
pumping for irrigation and agricultural processing all
depend on energy to varying extents. But in sub-Saharan
Africa, electricity to power critical development services
is limited. A study of health care facilities in the 10 most
populous countries in the subregion found that one in
every four health care facilities lacked access to electricity,
and almost three quarters of all health care facilities with
electricity connections grappled with unreliable supply
(Adair-Rohani et al. 2013). Meanwhile, electricity access
targets and goals continue to lag in sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite recent gains in global electricity access rates,
it is estimated that there will still be some 620 million
people without access to electricity by 2030; 85 percent
of them will be sub-Saharan Africans (IEA et al. 2020). If
urgent action is not taken to close the current gap, African
governments will be unable to deliver on development
outcomes that depend on electricity.
Despite the interdependencies between electricity access
and the delivery of critical development services, African
governments and the larger international development
community have pursued electricity access and development
sector goals in isolation from one another, missing important
opportunities for exploiting the synergies among them. As
we work to deliver ambitious targets for poverty reduction,
health, education, gender equality, and other goals by 2030,
the time is ripe to explore practical pathways for linking
electricity access and development sector priorities.
About This Working Paper
This paper explores some actions that energy and
development sector actors—specifically, African
governments (their line ministries, lead energy agencies
and local governments), the international development
community, the private sector, and civil society can take
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to facilitate a linked energy and development agenda that
can support the delivery of the SDGs. The vision for this
paper was born at a multistakeholder workshop hosted
by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and its local
partner, the Tanzania Traditional Energy Development
Organization, in Tanzania in October 2018. The
workshop brought together stakeholders in government,
the private sector, and civil society to explore the
opportunities and challenges of scaling productive and
social uses of energy for development in Tanzania.
Building on the lessons from the workshop, this paper
deploys a rigorous review of literature, examples, and
expert views to propose a framework that can guide the
target audience to collectively build an ecosystem that
can support a linked energy and development vision in
Africa. The paper can be used by the target audience to
guide discussions and identify existing gaps and potential
areas of intervention that can facilitate coordinated
action across energy and other development sectors.
The paper draws on two concepts, scale and character,
to support the argument that integrated action across
energy and other development sectors will require an
ecosystem comprising a mix of structural-institutional
and operational efforts that span global, national, and
subnational levels. The scale of cross-sectoral action
can be global, national, or subnational. The global scale
is important for building awareness and momentum
for action. For example, by articulating a blueprint
for building a better and sustainable future for all by
2030, the SDGs have galvanized action on national
levels. Several African governments are now working to
mainstream the SDGs into their development plans. But
action on the global scale alone is not enough. Energydevelopment linkages are most concretely experienced
at the national and subnational levels where the delivery
of development services occurs and where planning and
implementation of energy initiatives take place. At these
levels, the issues at stake typically relate to coordinating
action among actors with competing priorities and
divergent views about how development priorities must
be pursued, in addition to resource, capacity, and other
technical constraints.
The character of cross-sectoral efforts refers to the
substance of these efforts, which may be structuralinstitutional or operational (Masse and Watchueng 2010).
Structural-institutional initiatives entail the design of
harmonized policies as well as institutional, regulatory,
and legislative frameworks to support integrated energy
and development efforts. Operational initiatives, on the
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
other hand, involve on-the-ground implementation of
initiatives that are cross-sectoral in nature, such as a rural
electrification programs designed specifically with the
promotion of productive activities in mind (Masse and
Watchueng 2010).
The interplay of structural-institutional and operational
initiatives across the difference levels of governance—global,
national, and subnational—shapes the ecosystem needed to
establish a linked energy and development agenda.
The paper identifies four elements of such an ecosystem:
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Global ambition and engagement: A linked energy
and development agenda will require effective global
action. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how
interconnected our world is and how seemingly local
issues, such as the lack of electricity access, can limit
our resilience to global crises when they do arise.
Galvanizing support for a linked agenda on the global
level is important for building awareness, sharing
lessons across countries, and expanding the set of
actors beyond the traditional actors (who may be
dependent on governments alone to act) to include the
private sector and civil society.
Evidence-building on local levels: The lack of data and
evidence on the cross-sectoral dimensions of energy
and development efforts in Africa inhibits integrated
action. The subnational level, where the delivery of
energy and development services occurs, and where
impacts are felt, is an important space for building
data, evidence, and knowledge regarding what it
means to develop integrated energy and development
initiatives in practice, as well as the enabling factors
that can facilitate such efforts at scale.
Policy and institutional alignment on national
levels: At the national level, global ambition and
local evidence can collectively shape policies and
institutional arrangements that facilitate better
linkages between energy and other development
goals. In Africa, government agencies draw largely
on sector-specific data to shape national policies
and development plans, resulting in outputs that
reinforce sectoral distinctions, rather than integrated
action. Integrated action is further hindered by
the very structure of government agencies in
Africa where decisions relating to the allocation of
resources and incentives, as well as mechanisms for
accountability, are enforced through line ministries.
This creates competition rather than collaboration
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among line ministries. However, the ongoing data
revolution offers significant opportunities for national
governments to draw on data and analytic tools that
can inform plans and policies that take into account the
interdependencies between energy and other sectoral
outcomes. These, in turn, can inform decisions on
the allocation resources and incentives to encourage
coordination around cross-sectoral outcomes.
Restructured development finance: The fourth element
of an ecosystem that can support a linked vision is the
structure of development finance. Since 2012, official
development finance (ODF) in Africa has grown both
in volume of investments and in the diversity of the
actors contributing to the finance stream (with greater
domestic and private-sector investment in development
activities). According to a recent OECD report (OECD
2018), development finance currently follows a sector
and project-specific trajectory, limiting opportunities
for cross-sectoral action. The good news is that domestic
finance is growing in Africa and gradually reducing
the dependence on foreign aid. In 2010, sub-Saharan
African countries raised US$10 for every $1 of foreign
aid received (UNDP 2018). This increase in the volume
and diversity of finance options is creating opportunities
for African governments to restructure their national
budgets to support cross-sectoral planning and
implementation. Likewise, development partners will
have to reorient their support from the current sectoral
division of labor to a more integrated approach.
Policy Recommendations
Building on these four elements, we recommend four
broad areas of action that will be needed to drive change.
Link data to action. Local data and evidence can only
shape national and global action if we have strategic actors
in place to catalyze change using the data and analysis at
hand. As we aggregate local data and lessons, we must
enlist the help of actors without hidden interests and
agendas who can help to bridge the traditional divides
among the key development sectors at all governance
levels. Local policy research institutions and academic
institutions can partner with credible civil society
organizations to coordinate innovative action across
sectors. In African institutions of higher learning, we
must invest in training experts to embrace and apply
transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving that
reach beyond traditional sectoral boundaries.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 3
While encouraging cross-sectoral data collection and
planning at the national level, we must also ensure that
the right experts are embedded in line ministries to
translate cross-sectoral data into integrated action. For
instance, by embedding experts from lead energy agencies
in line ministries, the unique energy needs and priorities
of these ministries will be captured in national energy
plans and electrification strategies and vice versa.
Build strategic partnerships. Globally, there has
been a push by African governments and multilateral
and bilateral partners to engage the private sector in
development operations. Private finance is expected to
grow as ideas for commercial development approaches
become more popular (OECD 2018). However, the private
sector tends to focus on a small subset of commercially
viable sectors like energy, leaving the public sector to
support commercially less attractive social sectors. As we
gain more insights into the mutually reinforcing nature of
energy and the other development sectors, we have come
to understand that the viability of the private sector’s
investments in energy is dependent on the existence of
significant demand from other sectors (Taneja 2018) such
as health, agriculture, and other productive activities. This
understanding can provide a new impetus for the private
sector to partner with the public sector in stimulating
demand from social and other productive sectors for their
energy investments.
Another important partnership in driving a linked agenda
is multistakeholder partnerships. In Africa, several
line ministries consult with multistakeholder groups
when developing their sectoral plans. We can leverage
multistakeholder partnerships and use these same
consultative platforms to advocate for better linkages
between energy and other development sectors.
Build local capacity. As countries across Africa shift to
decentralized governance structures, local governments
will play a key role in development planning and service
delivery. At the same time, electricity service delivery
is becoming more local in some contexts as distributed
electricity options like mini-grids and solar home systems
gain acceptance. These shifts create opportunities to
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integrate energy and development efforts at the local level
and to build data and on-the-ground evidence of what
is needed for success. However, most local governments
in Africa are under-resourced and lack the technical and
financial capacity to develop and implement plans that
take the links between energy and development into
account. Embedding energy personnel in local governance
structures to streamline energy into local development
plans will be important. National governments and the
development community must invest in strengthening
local institutions through improved governance and
transparency, equity in the allocation of funds, and
improved capacity to generate revenue locally. This must
be complemented by efforts to make bureaucratic local
government structures more efficient through adequate
restructuring, empowerment, and providing the right
incentives. Establishing clear pathways for communicating
local evidence and knowledge to the higher governance
levels (national and global) is extremely important;
otherwise, local knowledge stays local
Rethink the indicators of success. As domestic
development finance in Africa grows, countries must lead
in defining development trajectories that take the linkages
between energy and development into account. Integrated
national development plans must be complemented
by modifications in internal budgetary decisions and
institutional structures for incentives and accountability
to encourage cross-sectoral outcomes. This can prod
line ministries along the line of greater coordination,
rather than competition. Development partners can also
plug into these integrated national plans. This will urge
development finance away from sector- and projectspecific efforts to more outcome-based efforts. Likewise,
development partners who prefer quantifiable and timebound, sector-specific impacts will have to accommodate
cross-sectoral outcome-based metrics, some of which will
require multiple and sometimes long timelines to show
impact. This will encourage these partners to draw on the
complementarities among their respective development
activities within a country to drive the systemic change
needed to build prosperous societies in Africa.
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT
Key Takeaways
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In Africa, energy’s role in driving development
outcomes has been recognized since post-colonial
times. Despite this appreciation of the linkages
between energy and other development outcomes,
significant gaps remain in coordinating the energy and
development sectors around mutual outcomes. Energy
is continually viewed as an external input, rather than
an integral aspect of other sectoral strategies.
In order to achieve the SDGs by 2030, more
coordinated efforts are needed to integrate energy
and other sectoral goals.
This paper proposes a framework that energy and
development sector actors can rally around to
collectively work on a linked agenda that can drive
mutually relevant outcomes.
Introduction
Electricity is a critical enabler of development.1 In many
development sectors, the role of electricity is evident. For
instance, even though electricity is only one of several
inputs needed for a well-functioning health system, the
lack of access to electricity can impede the storage of
vaccines in rural clinics and may inhibit the performance
of life-saving procedures that are dependent on
electricity. In an assessment of health care facilities in
the 10 most populous sub-Saharan Africa countries,
Adair-Rohani et.al. (2013) found that one in four health
care facilities lacked access to electricity, and close to
three quarters of those with access had challenges with
the reliability of electricity. Electricity is also known to
improve educational outcomes; electricity can facilitate
the use of information and communications technology
in classrooms, helps to attract and retain teachers,
enhances attendance and test scores, and can promote
other co-benefits, such as gender empowerment, health,
and sanitation (UNDESA 2014). However, most schools
in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity. Drawing
on data from the World Bank and UNESCO, a study by
the United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs examined the status of electrification in schools in
sub-Saharan Africa and reported that, of the primary and
secondary schools surveyed, approximately four out of
every five lacked access to electricity (UNDESA 2014).
Significant electricity access gaps persist across
sub-Saharan Africa. The absolute number of people
without access to electricity globally, dropped from 1.2
billion in 2010 to 789 million in 2018. This progress
notwithstanding, there will still be an estimated 620
million people without access to electricity by 2030;
approximately 9 out of every 10 of these will reside in subSaharan Africa (IEA et al. 2020). This is a worrying signal,
given energy’s role in driving other development goals.
The Energy-Development Linkage:
A Historical Trajectory
In Africa, the role of energy as one of the key drivers
of development outcomes has been recognized for
decades. Beginning in the 1960s, post-colonial African
governments focused on developing large-scale energy
infrastructure to power large-scale industrial growth. The
construction of mega hydroelectric dams was a key feature
of Africa’s development during that period (Agbemabiese
2002). By the 1980s, the role of energy in development
was increasingly appreciated in the context of powering
development activities aimed at meeting the basic needs
of the poor. Experts viewed energy’s role in promoting
development through the lens of the basic needs approach,
which was the prevailing development rhetoric of the time
(Goldemberg et al. 1985, 1988). The approach promoted
the need to direct energy into meeting basic needs to affect
social indicators like literacy rates, infant mortality, life
expectancy, and fertility rates (Goldemberg1991).
From the early to mid-nineties there was growing
interest in the role of energy in powering productive uses,
particularly for rural development. Early definitions of the
productive use of energy focused on the use of energy for
motive power to drive income-generating activities and
increase productivity. In the context of rural development,
increasing incomes and productivity were expected to drive
improvements in the quality of life of citizens. Researchers
in another school of thought found the confinement of the
meaning of productive uses to productivity and income
generation to be insufficient. For them it was important
to capture social dimensions like health and education
as well, as these indirectly led to increased incomes and
productivity. Examples of the contrasting definitions of
productive uses of energy are highlighted in Table 1.
What these evolving views of the relationship between
energy and development outcomes did successfully was
to establish energy’s role as a catalyst of development.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 5
Table 1 |
Contrasting Definitions of the Productive Uses of Energy
THE INCOME-GENERATION AND PRODUCTIVITY PERSPECTIVE
THE ECONOMIC PLUS SOCIAL COMPONENT
1. “Productive Use of Renewable Energy (PURE)” could be defined as
agricultural, commercial and industrial activities, powered by renewable energy
sources, which generate income.” (Alliance for Rural Electrification 2015, 4).
1. The term productive use . . . refers broadly to projects that aim at enhancing
income-generation opportunities and productivity in rural areas (e.g., small
industry, agriculture, commercial activities, telecommunications, education and
health facilities, clean water, refrigeration, etc.), to improve quality of life and
increase local resilience and self-reliance (Etcheverry 2003).
2. “Agricultural, commercial and industrial activities involving energy services
as a direct/indirect input to the production of goods or provision of services
with increase in income or productivity.” (GIZ 2013)
2. Productive uses of energy involve the use of energy . . . for activities that
enhance income and welfare. These activities are typically in the sectors of
agriculture, rural enterprise, health, and education. Examples of such activities
are pumping water for agriculture, agro processing, lighting, information and
communications, and vaccine refrigeration (Kapadia 2004).
3. “An activity that uses energy to earn income or generate other nonleisure
benefits. Common productive uses of energy include agricultural processing,
lighting for businesses and water pumping.” (USAID 2018)
3. The EnergyPlus approach promotes the productive use of energy for
generation of equitable employment and additional income; for meeting
needs of existing and new enterprises; for community needs such as
strengthened security and better access to education and health care,
including through electricity for street lighting, clinics, and schools; and for
lifestyle needs to improve living standards (UNDP 2015).
But energy was largely viewed as an external input
that could support other sectoral initiatives and not an
integral component of those sectoral strategies. Thus,
global development frameworks like the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) (which served as a blueprint
for development between 2000 and 2015) did not include
a goal for energy, even though several of the eight goals
were dependent to varying extents on the availability of
reliable supplies of energy.2
The SDGs, the successor to the MDGs, articulate a clear
goal on energy.3 SDG 7 focuses on ensuring access to
affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all
by 2030.
With their focus on nexus issues (i.e., issues that relate
to the synergies and potential trade-offs among the
different goals) (The Nexus Dialogue Program 2019), the
SDGs have revitalized interest in the interconnectedness
of the various strands of development. In Africa, the
framework has signaled the need for governments and
the development community to coordinate action across
otherwise siloed sectors as we strive to achieve the SDGs.
But much remains to be done in operationalizing these
linkages. An integrated vision will require significant shifts
in established structures and ways of doing things. For the
energy and development sectors, the time is ripe to think
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critically about the interdependencies between energy
and other sectoral goals and to embrace strategies that
can underpin the transformative action we need to drive
the development outcomes we hope to see in the coming
decade. This paper explores what we can do to move us
toward this linked agenda.
Objective of the Paper
The original vision for this paper was seeded at a
multistakeholder workshop hosted by WRI and its local
partner, the Tanzania Traditional Energy Development
Organization, in Tanzania in October 2018. The workshop,
Linking Energy with Socio-Economic Development in
Tanzania: The Role of Data and Partnerships, brought
together stakeholders in government, the private sector,
and civil society to explore some of the practical challenges
they face in adopting energy solutions for productive
activities and other social uses. The workshop revealed
that whereas energy’s role in development is broadly
acknowledged, significant gaps in policy, planning,
finance, and governance impede coordination of the
energy and development sectors around mutual outcomes.
In a subregion where progress in electricity access, health
care delivery, education, and agricultural productivity
continues to lag behind the rest of the world, urgent action
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
Figure 1 |
Energy and Other Development Goals
POVERTY
SDG
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS
1
SDG
17
PEACE
TERRESTRIAL
ECOSYSTEMS
OCEANS, SEAS, and
MARINE RESOURCES
SDG
END HUNGER
2
SDG
SDG
16
3
HEALTHY LIVES
SDG
SDG
15
4
SDG
SDG
14
7
EDUCATION
SDG
GENDER
5
ENERGY
CLIMATE CHANGE
SDG
SDG
13
6
SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION
and PRODUCTION
SDG
SDG
12
8
SDG
INCLUSIVE and
RESILIENT CITIES
WATER and
SANITATION
ECONOMIC GROWTH
SDG
11
SDG
10
9
INFRASTRUCTURE and
INDUSTRIALIZATION
REDUCE INEQUALITY
Source: ESMAP and SE4ALL 2017.
is needed to address these barriers if the SDGs are to be
achieved by 2030. Sub-Saharan African governments
and the international development community must rally
around a concrete set of strategies that can underpin a
better-linked energy and development agenda.
This paper builds on the lessons learned from the
workshop in Tanzania and draws on an extensive review
of literature, expert views, and examples across other
countries in the region to propose a framework on which
African governments and the international development
community can draw to facilitate better linkages between
energy and other sectoral outcomes. As we are cognizant
of the context specificity of energy and development
issues, the actions proposed in the paper are in no way
exhaustive in their scope nor intended to be prescriptive
in their application. Rather, they are intended to provide
a framework that can guide context-specific dialogues and
inform locally relevant action by African governments, the
international development community, the private sector,
and civil society toward building a linked vision.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 7
WORKING ACROSS SECTORS
Key Takeaways
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As early as the 1970s, governments across Africa and
development partners, informed by the emergence
of systems thinking in development practice,
experimented with cross-sectoral efforts through
integrated rural development.
Today, development continues to maintain very strict
sectoral delineations owing to several factors: the
structure of sectoral decision-making and resource
allocation, a lack of understanding of the co-benefits
of cross-sectoral efforts, financial and technical
resource constraints, hidden interests, and poor
governance structures.
However, renewed interest in the nexus of
energy and development on both local and global
levels, increasing domestic finance, the ongoing
data revolution, and the growing importance
of decentralized electricity technologies and
markets, among others, are creating the space for a
renewed conversation about how energy and other
development goals can be better aligned.
Two concepts, scale and character, are important for
understanding what a supportive ecosystem for a linked
energy and development agenda must comprise.
The idea of working across sectors to achieve
development objectives is not new to the SDG era. In
Africa, ideas of cross-sectoral coordination surfaced
at different points along the development journeys of
several countries, primarily in the context of integrated
rural development (IRD). The IRD approach was
informed by the emergence of systems thinking in the
design of development programs and in institutional
design in the early 1970s (Ruttan 1984). IRD was
proposed as an alternative to the prevailing development
thinking, which focused on programs that were
designed with very sharp sectoral foci such as increasing
agricultural production, improving rural education,
building farm-to-market roads, and other activities
(Ruttan 1984, 394). Integrated rural development
encouraged building on the sectoral complementarities
among different rural development goals.
The IRD approach was most prominent in rural
agricultural development where large investments in crop
research and production had failed to drive improvements
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in the livelihoods of subsistence and low-income farmers
in some least developed countries. What those initiatives
showed instead was that, even with the right technology in
hand, farmers were often confronted with other barriers
that constrained their productivity and their ability to
rise out of poverty. Farmers with the right technology
in hand but who were beset by poor health, illiteracy,
lack of water, inability to access credit, and the lack of
market access were unlikely to succeed in increasing their
incomes. This led to the conclusion that a more holistic
effort encompassing health, education, access to finance,
and other efforts was needed to promote the incomegeneration capacities of poor farmers in rural areas (ODI
1979). The approach also emphasized a second form of
integration that involved supporting small-scale farmers
with a package that includes a minimum level of inputs
“with functions such as land settlement, extension, credit
and marketing, integrated within a single organization”
(ODI 1979, 1).
One of the common critiques of IRD is that initiatives
modeled after the approach failed to deliver the intended
development outcomes. Most of these claims remain
anecdotal, as actual documentation of evaluations of
these projects are hard to come by (Masset 2018). Poor
data collection and the absence of robust evaluation
methods at the time resulted in limited analyses of the
impacts of IRD initiatives (Masset 2018). By the late
1980s and into the 1990s, most donors had abandoned
the IRD approach. This coincided with the shift of
development policy away from publicly funded initiatives
and agricultural development toward a market-driven
ideology. This shift in political ideology may also have
contributed to IRD becoming a less popular development
approach (IDS 2018).
In the early 2000s, then UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan, commissioned the UN Millennium Project
to establish a global plan of actions to drive the
achievement of the MDGs. The effort was led by
Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. In 2005, the
Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was initiated to
operationalize the actions proposed in the Millennium
Project. An improvement over the traditional IRD
approach, the MVP targeted 10 African countries and
focused on developing community-based capital in rural
Africa using donor finance4 (Sachs 2018). An end-line
evaluation of the MVP showed mixed results. While
improvements were seen in areas like child and maternal
health, the project’s impact on consumption-based
measures of poverty were insignificant, and the impact
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
on nutrition and education, inconclusive (Mitchell
et al. 2018). Post-project evaluations of the MVP,
however, yielded very useful insights for development
practice. Once such evaluation identified the top-down
nature of the MVP as a key limiting factor of project
success; projects had been centrally planned with little
recognition for the complexities of local context and
culture (Bendavid 2018).
After decades of experimentation with integrated
approaches, development in sub-Saharan Africa remains
largely sectoral in approach. The challenge of rallying
sectors that approach a development priority from very
different viewpoints and that may in some cases be
competing for the same resources has limited the potential
for cross-sectoral action (Neely et al. 2017). In several
instances, the supportive policies, regulatory frameworks,
and robust governance structures that are needed to
support cross-sectoral coordination are also absent.
Given the historical challenges with integration, one
may ask if we should be pursuing a linked agenda for
energy and other development goals. The answer is yes.
Now is an opportune time to engage in these discussions
as several factors align on the global, national, and
subnational levels to make this linkage possible. Coming
on the heels of decades of experimentation with integrated
development efforts, this era of SDGs can draw on a
repository of valuable lessons from the past to inform
current action. On national levels, governments who for
a long time were aware of the limiting nature of strict
sectoral approaches on overall development outcomes, but
who had been hesitant to pursue those approaches due to
vested interests and the unwillingness of line ministries to
move away from the status quo, are gradually becoming
more willing to explore what greater coordination could
mean in practice as they attempt to mainstream the
SDGs into their development plans. This is happening
alongside the fact that these governments are raising more
domestic finance and hence have greater autonomy to
make decisions that are in the interest of their national
development priorities.
Recent advances in distributed electricity generation
using stand-alone solar and mini-grids are changing
the dynamics of electricity generation and distribution.
Electrification is no longer the preserve of traditional
utilities alone; neither is it wedded to central grids.
Because distributed electricity generation happens locally
and involves a wider cast of actors (private entrepreneurs
and community-based associations) in its delivery, it
presents good opportunities to integrate electrification
with local development priorities.
Data and analytic tools for cross-sectoral planning and
decision-making are also becoming more widely available
and accessible. In the same vein, techniques for evaluating
integrated initiatives have improved significantly over the
decades. Independent evaluations of integrated efforts can
now draw on a range of mixed, experimental, and quasiexperimental approaches to deepen our understanding
of the impacts of such efforts (Masset 2018). The
convergence of these factors raises hope for a renewed
conversation about how energy and other development
outcomes can be better linked in practice.
Understanding Cross-Sectoral Linkages:
Conceptual Foundations
Before delving into a discussion about the key elements
we need to build a linked energy and development agenda,
there are two important concepts to keep in mind. These
are the scales of cross-sectoral engagement and the
character of cross-sectoral engagement.
Scales of multi sectoral engagement
Cross-sectoral engagement can span different levels of
governance: global, national, and subnational. Crosssectoral engagement is most easily achieved at the
global level. At this level, the focus is mainly on building
global recognition and ambition around an issue that
is multisectoral in nature. This is what the SDGs have
successfully achieved by articulating a blueprint for global
development by 2030. The actual success of the SDGs will,
however, be largely dependent on the abilities of national
governments to implement internal strategies to realize
these global goals (drawing on the assistance of the private
sector, civil society, and development partners) (United
Nations 2015).
The linkages between energy and other development
sectors are most concrete at the national and subnational
levels. A local government responsible for developing
the productive sector in its jurisdiction can more easily
appreciate energy’s facilitative role in that sector. An
energy service provider delivering energy services
can easily appreciate the critical need for consistent
demand from educational institutions, health care
centers, and agricultural activities for the sustainability
of its business. At these levels, the issues at stake are
typically issues of capacity, resources, knowledge and
technical skills, project financing, and the practical
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 9
challenge of coordinating actors around divergent and
usually conflicting views of how a concrete development
challenge ought to be addressed.
The character of cross-sectoral coordination
The second concept of working across sectors is the
character of cross-sectoral engagement. Cross-sectoral
engagement may involve initiatives that are structuralinstitutional or operational in nature (Masse and
Watchueng 2010). We may think of these two types of
initiatives as the software and hardware components of
cross-sectoral engagement, respectively.
STRUCTURAL-INSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVES
The term structural-institutional initiatives was
coined by the Club of National Agencies and Structures
Responsible for Rural Electrification. The term entails
initiatives that result in outputs like strategic programs,
innovative policy and institutional frameworks as well
as legislation that supports multisectoral action (Masse
and Watchueng 2010). Structural-institutional initiatives
are usually implemented on a national level but may
be driven by global or even regional engagements.
Regional bodies, such as the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) and the Central African
Economic and Monetary Community, and international
institutions, such as the World Bank, European Union,
and other bilateral donors, have played key roles in
implementing structural-institutional initiatives on
national levels (See Box 1). National governments can
also initiate structural-institutional initiatives to support
specific national development mandates. Structuralinstitutional initiatives are important for creating an
enabling environment to support the implementation
of integrated energy and development initiatives at the
national or subnational level.
OPERATIONAL INITIATIVES
Operational initiatives involve on-the-ground
implementation of projects or initiatives that are crosssectoral in nature; for example, the rollout of a rural
electrification program that is focused on promoting
productive uses of electricity or the establishment
of multisectoral financing mechanisms (Masse and
Watchueng 2010). Operational initiatives may involve
a heterogeneous group of actors: rural electrification
agencies, private energy developers, local governments,
civil society organizations, and microfinance institutions.
10 |
Box 1 |
PRSPs and the Birth of a Multisectoral Process?
Between 2002 and 2003, the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management
Assistance Program, through the Global Village Energy Partnership,
hosted a series of regional workshops in Addis Ababa, Dakar, and
Douala to encourage a multisectoral and multistakeholder approach
to poverty reduction in Africa. The Addis Ababa workshop brought
together stakeholders in both energy and other development sectors
from six countries—Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and
Kenya—to exchange ideas on integrating energy into their povertyreduction strategy papers. All six countries that participated in the
Addis workshop developed country action plans that identified priority
development sectors that could benefit from the integration of energy
for poverty alleviation (ESMAP 2002). The Dakar and Douala workshops
precipitated the formation of two multi sectoral groups: The Intersectoral Committee for the Implementation of Synergies between the
Energy Sector and Other Strategic Sectors for the Reduction of Poverty
and the Multisectoral National Energy Committee of Niger.
Structural-institutional and operational initiatives
are complementary. While structural-institutional
initiatives create the enabling framework that can support
on-the-ground establishment of operational initiatives,
operational initiatives can also be useful in shaping
the content and structure of structural initiatives. We
will build on these concepts in subsequent sections of
this paper to understand what is needed to support an
integrated energy and development agenda.
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
BUILDING THE ECOSYSTEM FOR A LINKED
ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
Key Takeaways
▪
▪
▪
▪
The global level is an important space for building
ambition, sharing lessons, and enlisting the support
of nontraditional actors, such as the private sector
and civil society, to support a linked energy and
development agenda.
The local level is an important space for building
knowledge, evidence, and data that can shape
integrated action on national and global levels.
Effective policy and institutional frameworks on
the national level are critical levers that can bring
together global ambition and local evidence to
enable integrated efforts across energy and other
development sectors.
The current structure of development finance
constrains opportunities for exploiting synergies at
the nexus of energy and other development sectors.
Restructuring development finance will be key to
realizing a linked vision.
Elements of an Ecosystem for a Linked
Energy and Development Agenda
Often, discussions about linking energy and other
development sectors have centered on the need for
the lead energy agencies and line ministries to talk to
each other. But this level of action alone is insufficient
to drive change. We need a broader systemic effort
that encompasses a range of structural-institutional
and operational initiatives across the different scales
of governance (global, national, and subnational).
What is required is an ecosystem within which both
global ambition and local evidence shape nationallevel policy and institutional structures. These can,
in turn, influence how initiatives at the local level are
defined to drive impact and can further serve to elevate
those lessons to global discussions. We identify four
key elements of this ecosystem: global ambition and
engagement, evidence building on local levels, policy
and institutional alignment on national levels, and
restructured finance. The focus on an ecosystem here
is to emphasize the collective relevance and mutually
reinforcing nature of the four elements.
Global ambition and engagement
If there is any lesson to be learned from the COVID-19
pandemic, it is the interconnectedness of the global
community. A seemingly local problem can be global in
impact. Conversely, local problems like electricity access,
if left unaddressed, can limit our resilience to global
crises when they do arise. Even though electricity access
and challenges with access to health care, education,
and other services are issues with local expression,
the global level will be an important space for building
ambition, sharing best practices among countries, and
expanding the set of actors that engage with these issues
beyond the traditional actors who may in many cases be
dependent on the national government to act. Drawing
on the lessons learned from global engagements, as well
as the opportunities for building strategic partnerships
with other global actors, African governments can
develop country-level strategies, policies, and legislative
instruments to support a linked agenda, taking the
peculiarities of their national circumstances into account.
For example, at the 29th Summit of Heads of State and
Governments in 2006, ECOWAS member states adopted
a regional white paper that stipulated regional objectives
for scaling access to modern energy services in the region
by 2015. The member states agreed on targets to promote
energy initiatives that were linked to poverty-reduction
strategies (through the development of productive
activity, the modernization of social sectors like health
and education, and the promotion of gender equity).
The member states also agreed on the need to build
institutional and policy frameworks that could support the
use of modern energy to promote development. As a direct
consequence of this regional engagement, the government
of Burkina Faso adopted a national white paper, which
laid out a plan for developing an in-country policy
strategy that would ensure that the provision of modern
energy services was aligned with sectoral plans for rural
development (Masse and Watchueng 2010).
Global engagement can also create a space for the private
sector and civil society to identify opportunities to engage
with local issues that can support a global ambition.
Evidence building on local levels
Past experiences with cross-sectoral efforts has revealed
the lack of evidence and data as a key barrier to successful
planning and implementation (Neely et al. 2017).
Operational initiatives at the local level are important for
building the data and evidence that can shape the design
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 11
Figure 2 |
An Ecosystem for a Linked Energy and Development Agenda
GLOBAL SCALE
NATIONAL SCALE
LOCAL SCALE
Building ambition, sharing best
practices, and expanding the
cast of actors
Policy alignment and
institutional frameworks
Knowledge and
evidence building
RESTRUCTURED FINANCE
Source: WRI author
of cross-sectoral efforts. Assessments of projects that are
implemented at the nexus of energy and development can
yield useful insights that can inform the design of other
projects or shape the design of supportive policy and
regulatory environments for integrated action.
For example, in Tanzania, the Italian NGO European
Committee for Training and Agriculture (CEFA) is
pursuing an integrated approach to implementing energy
and development initiatives in the country’s Njombe and
Iringa regions. CEFA is developing mini-hydro projects
in combination with initiatives that are promoting
income-generating activities in villages in these two
regions. Guided by the view that an understanding of the
complex systems that underlie community development
is critical to developing energy initiatives that promote
development, CEFA has established a model that is built
on community engagement, sensitization campaigns,
and multistakeholder engagement. In 1989, CEFA
founded the Matembwe Village Committee (MVC) to
support integrated rural development in Matembwe. The
shareholders of the company are the village councils of
Matembwe, Yembela, and Ikondo; the Njombe District
Council; the Njombe Roman Catholic Diocese; and the
workers of the company, who are mainly locals. Through
the MVC, CEFA has developed two hydro mini-grids that
serve a total of 1,192 users across eight villages. These
include 1,040 households, 133 commercial activities, 9
12 |
schools, 5 dispensaries, and 5 public service buildings.
The MVC also invests in poultry and animal feed
production as well as forestry. MVC rears about 540,000
chickens per year and produces 210 tons of animal feed
annually. To ensure that communities benefit from
access to modern energy, CEFA invests in vocational
training and business literacy classes and supports the
establishment of new businesses, as well as the scale-up
of existing agricultural processing initiatives. CEFA’s
projects in the Njombe and Iringa regions in Tanzania
have stimulated other investments in communication
services, commerce, and social services in the regions,
leading to significant local development.
There are several scattered examples of initiatives of
this nature across the continent that continue to yield
important lessons. There can be significant value in
aggregating the lessons from these experiences across
different contexts and using that knowledge to inform
local and national-level thinking about the support that is
needed to scale such integrated efforts beyond individual
projects. The local level, therefore, becomes an important
space for building the evidence and understanding of the
ingredients that are needed to support that integration in
practice. This must be complemented by clear pathways
for communication and engagement to ensure that the
local evidence influences national and global action.
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
Spotlight: A potential role for local governments?
As more African countries move toward decentralized
governance structures, the role of local governments
is becoming more prominent in delivering salient
development services.5 Local governments represent
the level of government that is closest to the citizens
of a country and, therefore, tend to be the level of
government most conversant with the needs and
aspirations of the citizenry when they are downwardly
accountable (Ribot 2002). As the custodians of local
development plans, local governments can have a more
holistic view of local development needs and priorities
beyond project-based approaches. Local governments
can play an important role in building and sustaining
integrated agendas as they deliver services that rely
on energy in their jurisdictions (van Staden 2017).
Coordination with local governments is not only relevant
for ticking the public participation box of a project but
is critical for developing well-integrated projects that
can drive sustained development locally. Experiences
from early IRD projects show that some of the projects
were not sustained beyond the project period because
not enough attention was given to local participation.
Because early IRD efforts were typically rolled out in very
rural communities with weak local institutions, donors
established specialized structures to administer these
projects. These positions were usually filled by expatriate
staff and other skilled personnel, who were mostly not
employed beyond the end of the project. Without local
capacity and expertise to maintain these initiatives, they
could not be sustained nor scaled up (IDS 2018).
Despite the important role that local governments can
play in coordinating local action and feeding the lessons
learned into national and global platforms, there are
several constraints that may inhibit effective local
government engagement along these lines as described
in Box 2.
Policy and institutional alignment on
national levels
Global ambition and local evidence building will not
result in systemic changes if national-level policies and
institutions are not aligned to support an integrated
agenda. Tools for organizing local-level data and
conducting analysis that can inform harmonized policies
will be important. Currently, policies that guide ministries
of energy, health, education, and other services are
Engaging Local Governments: The Critical Role of
Good Governance, Capacity Building, and Financing
Box 2 |
POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE
Local governments can be well-positioned to lead integrated energy
and development efforts if they are downwardly accountable to the citizens they represent and have the autonomy to make decisions that take
public interest into account. When the transfer of responsibility to provide local services is not accompanied by the transfer of fiscal authority
and autonomy, local governments may become more accountable to
the central government actors who hold the purse strings, rather than
to local communities (Ribot 2002). In other instances where inequalities
are already embedded in the social fabric of communities, decentralization of authority to local governments can lead to a deepening of existing inequalities or create the substrate for new patterns of inequality to
be created, leading to elite capture. Such local governments can fail to
play a “representative, responsive and constructive role in the everyday
lives of local populations” (Ribot 2002, 2). Improving both central and
local governance around the distributions of resources, participatory or
inclusive planning, transparency, and accountability will be important
for local government action around service delivery and the development of an integrated energy and development agenda.
CAPACITY
In some contexts, local governments may lack the technical capacity
to integrate energy and service delivery planning. In countries where
electricity delivery is seen as the preserve of a national utility, local
governments may have little to no experience planning for electricity
services. For example, in Tanzania where the government is looking
to implement Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) objectives through
local governments, most of these local governments have limited
experience developing energy plans. This leads to energy getting
sidelined in development planning on the local level (URT 2017). Raising local government awareness around the benefits of integrated
energy and development agenda and building their technical capacity to develop energy plans that take sectoral development needs into
account will be important.
FINANCE
Finance is a typical challenge for local governments. The lack of funds
limits local government capacity for service delivery. In some cases,
funding from central governments might be insufficient. The transparent institutional framework for an equitable disbursement of funds
from central to local government levels may also not be available. Local
governments may also lack the internal capacity to raise local revenue
that can support service delivery and local development. Pursuing
integrated energy and development agendas in cash-strapped contexts
can be challenging as local governments may be forced to prioritize
some sectoral priorities over others, instead of considering the linkages
among them.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 13
largely informed by sector-specific data and analysis
that fail to take sectoral interdependencies into account.
Energy planners may develop least-cost electrification
plans and assess technological options with little to no
engagement with line ministries. Ministries of health,
education, and other services may also develop initiatives
with energy components in isolation from the lead
energy agencies. Without prior consultation with energy
stakeholders, health or education ministries may invest
resources in electrifying facilities that are also marked for
electrification by the energy agencies. This may not be in
the best interest of effective resource allocation.
As the world embraces a data revolution, the time is ripe
to draw on innovative data collection and analytic tools
to implement rigorous mapping of energy needs across
sectors, consolidate national energy needs, and facilitate
effective data sharing among line ministries and lead
energy agencies. This will enable energy agencies to plan
better to implement energy access efforts across sectors.
WRI has developed the Energy Access Explorer, a tool that
enables analyses that can support better linkages between
energy and other development sectors. The platform,
which was developed in partnership with global, national,
Figure 3 |
Mapping of Health Care Facilities in Uganda
Source: Energy Access Explorer 2020.
14 |
and subnational stakeholders in both the energy and
development sectors, goes beyond the cost optimization
of technological options for electrification to allow multicriteria analysis that gives equal importance to both the
supply and demand dimensions of electricity access. By so
doing, both energy experts and development experts can
draw on a single data platform as a basis for a dialogue
about how their respective sectors can strategize to pursue
goals of mutual relevance.
In Uganda, WRI is working with the Ministry of Energy
and the Ministry of Health to map out health care facilities
in Uganda in the Energy Access Explorer. A thorough
mapping of all health care facilities (from dispensaries to
teaching hospitals) will give a better overview of the scale
as well as spatial variation of health care energy demand
across different regions and districts in Uganda. Both
ministries of energy and health can draw on these analyses
to shape decisions regarding the optimal electrification
strategies that will be needed to electrify health care
facilities in Uganda, taking poverty, affordability, and
other sectoral priorities into account.
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
In addition to the data barriers, the structure of
government agencies in Africa tends to impede the
potential for cross-sectoral coordination (Benson 2011),
as all political and administrative authority, decisions
on resource allocations, and incentives and structures
for accountability are enforced through line ministries.
A fundamental rethinking of structures for resource
allocation and incentives, coupled with support for an
integrated outcome-based agenda, will be a step in the
right direction.
Restructuring development finance
The fourth important element of an ecosystem for an
integrated energy and development agenda is the structure
of development finance. A 2018 OECD report that
assesses development finance flows from the Development
Assistance Committee and non-Committee countries
shows that development finance continues to be shaped by
sectoral priorities and remains largely influenced by the
interests of donors, which may not necessarily be aligned
with the national development interests of the recipient
governments (OECD 2018).
Official development finance (ODF) from bilateral and
multilateral providers in 2016 was $293.6 billion; this
represented a 35 percent increase from 2012. Of these
funds, 64 percent was provided by bilateral donors and
36 percent by multilateral institutions. Most of the total
ODF ($224 billion) was sector-allocable; that is, it could be
analyzed by sector.6 Despite the overall growth in ODF over
the period, the sectoral allocation of funds remained largely
Figure 4 |
ODF Allocation by Sector (2012–2016)
9%
9%
Social
34%
14%
ODF ALLOCATION
BY SECTOR
Infrastructure
Production
Multisector
34%
Banking and
Business
stable. The lion’s share (two-thirds) of all sector-allocable
ODF went to the social and infrastructure sectors.
Bilateral donors are the primary financiers of the social
sectors (up to 40 percent of their total sector-allocable
funding), whereas multilateral donors focus on the
infrastructure, banking, and business sectors. Most
sectoral financing is currently provided by just a handful
of multilateral and bilateral donors. Up to 84 percent of
all infrastructure investments come from six multilateral
development banks, the United States, Japan, Germany,
and Korea.7 Close to 40 percent of funding in the social
sectors comes from the World Bank and the United States
(OECD 2018).
Private development finance also doubled from $15
billion in 2012 to about $33 billion in 2016 (OECD 2018).
Private finance tends to target sectors with high prospects
for commercial returns: energy, banking and business,
industry, mining, and construction. The social sectors like
education and health attract less private financing.
Development partners also tend to allocate their sectoral
budgets to specific projects. This further jeopardizes the
scope for cross-sectoral integration and policy coherence.
When development partners allocate their sectoral funds
to specific projects, it is much easier for them to quantify
the impacts of their financial assistance. This, however,
reinforces barriers between sectors that should otherwise
be coordinating around goals requiring multisectoral inputs
or efforts on the country level. In some cases, development
partners may stick to project-level disbursement
structures because it enables them to retain control of their
development dollars (OECD 2018). Broad sectoral support
and pooled funding tend to receive much less attention,
even though these instruments have a greater propensity
to promote greater sectoral integration if they are well
designed (OECD 2018) and if national governments
institute clear coordination and policy guidance, as well as
accountability mechanisms.
Local finance for development is growing
Domestic finance is growing steadily. This is happening
through the imposition and more effective collection of
consumption and income taxes and revenues from tourism
and natural resources in developing countries. Domestic
local resources in developing and emerging economies have
grown at a rate of about 14 percent since 2000. Currently,
domestic public resources constitute the “largest and most
important source of finance for development” (UNDP 2018,
Source: OECD 2018.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 15
Figure 5 |
ODF Support by Intervention Type and Sector (2012–2016)
Intervention Type
Sector
Projects
160
Sector budget
Pooled funding
Technical assist.
Others
100
80
USD billions
120
60
80
40
40
20
0
0
Projects
Sector
budget
Pooled Technical Others
funding assist.
Production
Banking
and Business
Infrastructure
Social
Multisector
Source: OECD 2018
12). This has reduced the overall dependence of developing
countries on foreign aid for development. In 2010,
countries in sub-Saharan Africa raised $10 for every $1 of
foreign aid received (UNDP 2018). As domestic finance
comes to play an important role in financing development,
African countries can have more control over their financial
resources and can structure internal budgets to take
16 |
advantage of the potential for integration. African countries
are also accessing more finance from private sources in the
form of foreign direct investments and through domestic
debt markets. This increase in the total volume and
diversity of financing sources points to opportunities to
rethink how finance can be better structured and allocated
to support an integrated energy and development agenda.
Linking lectricity ccess nd Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
TOWARD A LINKED VISION
Key Takeaways
▪
▪
▪
▪
As we build the case for integrated action between
energy and other development sectors, we must enlist
the help of actors who can bridge differences among
stakeholders to drive the change we need.
Public-private partnerships and multistakeholder
partnerships can create new investment opportunities
and serve to communicate the benefits of an
integrated agenda to stakeholders at global, national,
and subnational levels.
Building capacity and instituting effective systems of
governance on local levels, coupled with establishing
clear lines of communication and collaboration
across the different scales of governance, will be key
to ensuring that local experience and knowledge are
factored into decision-making processes at national
and global levels.
As the role of domestic development finance grows,
African governments must lead on creating integrated
plans, supported by appropriate policies and
legislation, to inform collaborative action among their
sectoral agencies and to redirect foreign development
finance from the narrow focus on sector-specific
projects and impacts to cross-sectoral initiatives and
outcome-based targets.
straddle the traditional divide between energy and other
sectors, like health, education, and agriculture. Local
policy research institutions and academic institutions can
partner with credible civil society organizations to engage
different sectoral players around data and evidence that
can help them appreciate the interconnections among
their sectors and encourage them to explore innovative
opportunities for engagement. Academic institutions,
through the structure of the training they offer, can
begin laying the ground for producing experts who are
transdisciplinary in their approach to problem solving
and not wedded to the technical specificities of their
sectoral enterprises. Over the long term, this investment
in intellectual capital can be reflected in a cadre of experts
in policy and planning institutions who are able to see
beyond their sectoral fields of vision.
While encouraging cross-sectoral data collection and
planning at the national level, we must also ensure that
the right experts are embedded in line ministries to
translate cross-sectoral data into integrated plans. For
instance, by embedding experts from lead energy agencies
in ministries of health, education, agriculture, and other
services, the unique energy needs and priorities of these
ministries will be captured in national energy plans and
electrification strategies.
Figure 6 |
Action Areas for a Linked Agenda
Having established the four key elements that are needed to
support a linked energy and development agenda, we now
conclude with a discussion of some concrete actions that
can be taken to promote this approach. We identify four
important action areas in Figure 6 .
Linking data
to action
Linking Data to Action
Analytic tools like the Energy Access Explorer are providing
the data and analysis that can support the case for a linked
agenda. Opportunities also exist to aggregate lessons
from operational initiatives at the intersection of energy
and other development sectors through robust impact
assessments and project evaluations. While the need to
support such data collection and analyses remains, there
is also the need to identify strategic players who can
drive change using the analyses developed. At all scales
of engagement—global, national, and local—conveners
without hidden interests and agendas will be needed to
Building
strategic
partnerships
Rethinking
indicators
of success
Building
local capacity
Source: WRI author
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 17
Building Strategic Partnerships
Building Local Capacity
In recent years, African governments and multilateral and
bilateral partners have given much attention to mobilizing
private finance for development operations. Even though
private finance doubled between 2012 and 2016, the levels
currently remain low, considering the scale of financing
needed to meet the SDGs. Private finance is expected to
grow as interest in commercial development solutions
grow (OECD 2018). The private sector, however, tends
to concentrate on a limited subset of sectors like energy,
which is considered more commercially viable, leaving the
public sector to invest in the so-called commercially less
attractive social sectors like health and education. But in
Africa, the interdependencies between the two are more
apparent today than ever before. An integrated energy
and development agenda can pave the way for us to bring
together both public and private finance in creative ways.
The time is right for the energy sector to ask the important
question, what will our energy investments be powering? In
sub-Saharan Africa, countries like Kenya are already being
forced to grapple with this question, as constrained demand
for electricity threatens to jeopardize the business models
of both the public utility and private energy providers
(Taneja 2018). Stimulating demand in sectors like health,
education, and agriculture will be extremely crucial to the
viability of energy investments just as much as these sectors
need affordable and reliable supplies of electricity to thrive.
According to the OECD, the so-called social sectors, which
have been less attractive to the private sector, can present
significant opportunities for investment (OECD 2018).
Strategic partnerships and alliances between the private
and public sectors will be needed to drive this change.
As several African countries move to decentralized
governance structures, development planning will
increasingly happen at the local level. As distributed
electricity options like mini-grids and solar home systems
gain wider acceptance in Africa, electricity service delivery
is also becoming more local as actors beyond traditional
utilities become active in the space. These shifts are creating
opportunities to link development and energy service
delivery on local levels. Data and experiences from these
efforts can inform national and global action regarding
what is needed to drive integrated efforts on the ground.
We also need innovative partnerships to carry the
message of the benefits of an integrated agenda to relevant
stakeholders at global, national, and subnational levels.
Existing multistakeholder partnerships can be leveraged
to make the case for this integrated agenda. In many
African countries, line ministries consult with the private
sector and civil society when developing sectoral plans
and policies through stakeholder consultation processes.
With the right analysis and evidence in hand, as well as
the necessary capacity and structures for engagement in
place, multistakeholder partnerships can be leveraged to
use these same consultative platforms to advocate for better
linkages between energy and other development sectors.
Multistakeholder consultations with sectoral agencies must
be structured with this objective in mind.
18 |
However, most local governments in Africa are extremely
under-resourced and lack the technical capacity to
develop local development plans that integrate energy and
development goals. In some contexts, local governments
may lack energy expertise on their planning teams; hence,
health, education, and other sector plans fail to take energy
into account. In these contexts, it is extremely important
that energy planners be embedded in local governance
structures to facilitate the integration of energy into other
development plans.
National governments and the development community
can commit to strengthening local institutions through
improved governance, transparency, and equity in the
allocation of funds. Strengthening the capacities of
local governments to generate their own revenue can
be beneficial to a linked agenda. In addition to these,
improving the efficiency of current bureaucratic structures
in local governments through adequate restructuring,
empowerment, and the right incentives will be key. With
the right institutional and governance arrangements in
place, as well as the right technical capacity, financially
self-sufficient local governments can support strategic
plans and budgets that take the linkages between energy
and other sectors into account.
In addition to local governments, there are a host of
local institutions working at the intersection of energy
and development. These include community-based
organizations, local development NGOs, and local energy
service providers. Compared with large western international
NGOs working on similar issues, local organizations contend
with varying degrees of capacity constraints—technical,
financial, human resources, and so on. Strengthening these
local organizations and encouraging knowledge sharing
among them through local and global platforms will be
important in pursuing a linked vision.
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
Effective feedback loops among global, national, and local
actions will be needed to support an integrated energy
and development agenda. Building local capacity must
be complemented by efforts that ensure that democratic
processes for incorporating local input into national action
are established and backed by effective legislation. Closed
policy and planning processes on the national level will
inhibit local participation and limit opportunities for local
data, knowledge, and experience to shape national and
global action.
Rethinking Indicators of Success
As development finance in Africa grows both in volume
and in the diversity of sources, we need to reconsider how
we allocate finance and design related impact metrics. As
local development finance grows, governments in Africa
must take the lead in defining the development trajectory
they would like to take. They must structure their
development plans and budgets to cater to the linkages
between energy and the other development sectors.
Such integrated national plans will also help African
governments encourage collaboration between their line
ministries in defining objectives and tracking outcomes.
Decisions on resource allocations, incentives, and
structures for accountability must also be structured to
encourage collaboration, rather than competition, among
line ministries around common outcomes.
The development community can, in turn, plug into
those integrated plans. In so doing, development
partners can be urged away from the current focus on
impacts that are specific to their sectors of interest to
focus on how their actions can complement those of
other partners working in other sectors. Development
partners will have to deepen their focus on thematic
goals and outcomes (OECD 2018). Unlike stand-alone
projects where quantifiable impacts are easier to track,
integrated efforts that focus on thematic goals and
cross-sectoral issues can involve multiple outcomes
with multiple timelines, which can exceed the project
timeline (Masset 2018). For development partners
who are interested time-bound, quantifiable impacts,
this can represent a significant source of tension when
defining their priorities. Development partners must be
flexible and committed to rethinking what success for
them entails. In cases where development partners can
capitalize on the integration of energy into the delivery
of health, educational, and agriculture initiatives, they
should take immediate advantage of those opportunities.
But more importantly, development partners must
exploit synergies among their respective activities and
look beyond project-specific support to outcomebased support.
As philanthropic organizations, domestic and international
foundations and emerging providers like China increase
their footprint on the development landscape in Africa
(OECD 2018), governments must take the lead in ensuring
that the resources and objectives of these financiers are
well coordinated and consistent with national development
priorities, while purposefully creating opportunities for
mutual learning among them.
Taken collectively, these actions can increase greater
coordination between line ministries and lead energy
agencies within African countries, strengthen local
action, and facilitate better alignment between national
development priorities and donor investments. There
couldn’t be a better time to do this than the last decade for
the SDGs.
SUMMARY: A FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION
In conclusion, we summarize some key interventions
that African governments (and their line ministries
and lead energy agencies), development partners,
the private sector, and civil society can focus on to
operationalize the four broad action areas we discussed
(see Table 2). The interventions highlighted here are
not exhaustive and may vary, depending on contextual
realities. They can, however, serve as important entry
points for shaping dialogues and identifying gaps in
what is needed in-country to support integrated energy
and development pathways.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 19
Table 2 |
Summary of Intervention Areas
KEY INTERVENTION AREAS
WHO SHOULD BE ENGAGED?
DATA COLLECTION AND SHARING
DATA COLLECTION AND SHARING
▪
▪
Support sectoral data collection and institute common structures
and/or platforms for data sharing between line ministries and
lead energy agencies, as well as between the private and public
sector
Document and share lessons on the impact on integrated efforts
on development and the enabling conditions for success with all
relevant stakeholders
PLANNING AND POLICY
LINKING
DATA TO
ACTION
▪
Harmonize policies and plans across energy and other development
sectors by embedding staff from lead energy agencies in line ministries and local governments to use cross-sectoral data and analysis
to bridge energy and development sector plans and policies
CONSULTATION AND DIALOGUE
▪
▪
Enlist the assistance of actors without hidden interests and
agendas (independent policy research institutes, universities,
and credible civil society organizations) to facilitate dialogue and
coordination between energy and other sectors using data and
impact evaluations
Promote a transdisciplinary approach to energy and development
studies in institutions of higher learning
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
▪
▪
BUILDING
STRATEGIC
PARTNERSHIPS
Invest in stimulating demand for energy services by supporting
agriculture, small business development, health, education, etc.
MULTISTAKEHOLDER PARTNERSHIPS AND DIALOGUE
▪
▪
20 |
Promote a healthy investment climate for the private sector
through clear and transparent regulations that govern energy
and other development sectors.
Establish clear and transparent structures for multistakeholder
engagement with development planning and build the capacity
of multistakeholder partners to engage
Structure multistakeholder consultations with energy and other
development sectors with clear goals of promoting better crosssectoral linkages in mind
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Line ministries
Lead energy agencies
Finance ministries
Local governments
Universities and research institutions
Local and international NGOs
Private-sector associations and companies
PLANNING AND POLICY
▪
▪
▪
National and local planning agencies
Line ministries
Regulatory authorities and legislative bodies
CONSULTATION AND DIALOGUE
▪
▪
Local policy research institutions and universities
Civil society organizations
DATA COLLECTION AND SHARING
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Regulatory agencies
Legislative bodies
Line ministries
Private-sector actors
Development finance institutions
Foundations and philanthropies
Civil society organizations
PLANNING AND POLICY
▪
▪
▪
▪
National and subnational planning agencies
Line ministries
Private-sector actors
Civil society organizations
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
Table 2 |
Summary of Intervention Areas (cont.)
KEY INTERVENTION AREAS
WHO SHOULD BE ENGAGED?
DATA COLLECTION, EVIDENCE BUILDING, AND KNOWLEDGE SHARING
CONSULTATION AND DIALOGUE
▪
▪
Support local sectoral data collection and assessments of
operational initiatives to build on-the-ground evidence of what
is required to scale integrated energy and development efforts
Establish clear lines of communication and collaboration among
local and national governance levels to ensure that local evidence and lessons from assessments of operational initiatives
are factored into national level plans
STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNANCE
▪
BUILDING
LOCAL
CAPACITY
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Enact legislation to promote transparency and accountability
in the distributions of resources, and participatory/inclusive
planning on local levels
Make existing local structures more efficient through adequate
restructuring, incentives, and motivation
Support local governments in raising domestic revenue by
stimulating productive activity and promoting transparency and
accountability in local revenue collection
Build the technical capacity of local governments to integrate
energy into local development plans and strategies by embedding
energy planning personnel in local government structures
Support local NGOs and private-sector actors working at the
intersection of energy and other development sectors with
technical, financial, and other forms of assistance to help
them thrive
Create opportunities for knowledge sharing among local
governments and other actors working locally at the
intersection of energy and development
POLICY AND PLANNING
▪
▪
RETHINKING
INDICATORS
OF SUCCESS
Develop integrated development plans (supported by
appropriate policies and legislation) to inform collaborative
action among line ministries and to guide donor support toward
cross-sectoral support and systemic impacts
Structure resource allocations, incentives, and structures
for accountability to encourage collaboration, rather than
competition, among line ministries around common outcomes
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
▪
▪
▪
Build cross-cutting goals, such as gender equality, poverty
alleviation, etc., into strategic plans and monitoring frameworks
Shift from project-level impact tracking to cross-sectoral
impact tracking
Coordinate the activities of development partners and monitor
how the respective investments are contributing toward
integrated national goals and subnational goals
▪
▪
Local policy research institutions and universities
Civil society organizations
STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNANCE
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Legislative bodies
Regulatory agencies
Local governments
Civil society organizations
Local and international NGOs
Development finance institutions
Foundations and philanthropies
Private-sector actors
POLICY AND PLANNING
▪
▪
▪
▪
National and local planning agencies
Finance ministries
Development finance institutions
Foundations and philanthropies
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
▪
▪
▪
▪
National and local governments
Independent research institutions
Civil society organizations
Local and international NGOs
Source: WRI author
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 21
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CEFA
European Committee for Training and Agriculture
CEMAC
Central African Economic and Monetary Community
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019
ECOWAS
Economic Community of West African States
IDS
Institute of Development Studies
IEA
International Energy Agency
IRD
Integrated rural development
MDGs
Millennium Development Goals
MVP
Millennium Villages Project
MVC
Matembwe Village Committee
NGO
Nongovernmental organization
ODF
Official development finance
ODI
Overseas Development Institute
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SE4ALL
Sustainable Energy for All
SDG
Sustainable Development Goal
URT
United Republic of Tanzania
UN
United Nations
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
22 |
Linking Electricity Access and Development Outcomes in Africa: A Framework for Action
ENDNOTES
1. This paper focuses on electricity access. Any reference to energy refers
to electrical energy unless otherwise specified. It must be noted, however, that even though the focus here is on electrical energy, energy for
cooking and heating is a critical element of SDG 7. Like what this paper
tries to achieve, the exploration of how the linkage between energy and
development in the context of cooking and heating applications could
be better exploited, for overall development benefits will be beneficial to
attaining SDG7.
2. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) included targets for
halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, providing universal primary education, etc., all by the target date of 2015 (http://www.
un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml).
3. The framework, which is a legally nonbinding arrangement, is intended
to guide societies in realizing prosperous futures that are inclusive
and sensitive to environmental protection through a number of goals
spanning several development sectors. The framework presents 17 goals
highlighting critical development areas or goals, the achievement of
most of which will require effective coordination across different sectors.
4. Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Ghana,
and Tanzania.
5. In several African countries the history of decentralization has been
linked to efforts by governments to shift from centralized approaches of
government to decentralized forms of government that lead to a more effective allocation of development to the local spaces and promote better
accountability and transparency in the allocation of resources from the
center to the periphery.
6. Social comprises education, health, government and civil society, and
other social services. Infrastructure includes water, transportation and
storage, communications, and energy. Production encompasses agriculture, industry, mining and construction, and trade and tourism. Banking
and business are grouped into a single sector grouping. Multisector
comprises both the environment sector and multisector activities.
7. Bilateral donors like China are making significant infrastructure investments in Africa. These investment flows are not reported to the OECD
creditor system as yet and are therefore not captured in these sectoral
analyses.
WORKING PAPER | July 2020 | 23
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT WRI
The author would like to thank the reviewers of this paper for their time
and inputs. External reviewers included Eng. Sitra Mulepo (Senior Engineer,
Uganda Ministry of Health), Dr. Gerd-Henning Vogel (Senior Energy Expert/
Advisor, Tanzania) and Eng. Estomih Sawe (Chief Executive Officer, Tanzania
Traditional Energy Development Organization). Internal reviewers included
Jacob Waslander, Debbie Weyl, Uttara Narayan, Pamli Deka, Alexander
Tankou, Santiago Sinclair-Lecaros, and Achille Djeagou. I am grateful to
Alexander Tankou for also providing research support. I would like to thank
Emilia Suarez for coordinating the review, process; Emily Matthews and
Caroline Taylor for copyediting, and Romain Warnault and Rosie Ettenheim
for the publication design.
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This paper was made possible through the generous support of the C.S. Mott
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