A contested agenda: Energy transitions in lower-income African countries

At last year’s climate change conference, COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, a conflict erupted between Western and sub-Saharan African governments over development finance for fossil-fuel projects. African governments argued that a heralded reduction in funding from Western donors would hamper their efforts to improve access to electricity and advance economic development.

In other word, competing political logics were at play in the debates about energy transitions and climate change on the continent. In a new journal article published in Energy Policy researchers Rasmus Hundsbæk Pedersen and Ole Winckler Andersen dig into these dynamics by focusing on the political economy of energy transitions in lower income African countries.

The authors find that trajectories differ widely with some countries deploying renewable energy like solar and wind on a significant scale while others continue down a fossil fuel path. They suggest that concerns over energy security and a focus on developing domestic sources of energy are similar across countries, but also that differences in resource endowments, particularly the availability of oil and gas, decisively influence the potential for energy transitions.

Resource endowments in turn influence the finance that can be mobilized and the types of coalitions that can be forged between international development donors, international finance, governments and other domestic actors.

This implies that, if a transition to more sustainable forms of energy is the goal, diversified and context-specific approaches and a willingness to work across energy sources and technologies are required. Too many red lines are unlikely to be helpful in the transition phase.