Impact of official development assistance projects for renewable energy on electrification in sub-Saharan Africa

Capucine Chapel ()
Additional contact information
Capucine Chapel: CESAER - Centre d'économie et de sociologie rurales appliquées à l'agriculture et aux espaces ruraux - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE] - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Dijon - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: While the African continent has one of the largest renewable energy potentials in the world, it remains the most deprived region for access to electricity. Official development agencies can provide the funds and experience necessary for the sustainable development of this sector to those countries that suffer from limited domestic resources. We estimate the impact of renewable energy aid projects implemented in 19 sub-Saharan African countries on access to electricity for communities in the region. By combining georeferenced data from aid projects in renewable energy from AidData and survey data from the Afrobarometer, we find, using different propensity score matching methods, a positive and significant impact of these projects on electrification of communities. A comparison with the same sample on non-renewable energy projects shows a better efficiency of eco-friendly projects. However, the effectiveness of these projects is heterogeneous and depends greatly on the type of donor, the location, and the initial level of development. Our results contribute to the scholarly debate on aid effectiveness and provide important political implications. Indeed, they suggest that international donors should favour sending funds for renewable energy projects in countries and regions lacking electrification as these funds contribute to better access to electricity while promoting environmentally friendly technologies.

Keywords: Renewable energy; Official development assistance; Electrification; Propensity scores matching; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-04
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04085797v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published in World Development, 2022, 152, pp.105784. ⟨10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105784⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-04085797v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04085797

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105784

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().