The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.
They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.
FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.
FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.
Prior to the introduction of independent power projects (IPP), Kenya relied primarily on concessionary funding from multilateral and bilateral agencies to finance new power investments. In the 1990s, however, the global donor trend shifted toward private participation in infrastructure with concessionary funding being targeted at health and social services. This move away from development finance for power projects was aggravated by a general aid embargo, imposed on Kenya throughout the early and mid-1990s, for reasons linked to corruption and lack of advancement in the creation of a multi-party state, which affected all sectors, including power. Thus, a platform of reform for opening up the country's generation sector to private participation gradually emerged in the mid-1990s, paving the way for contracting the first set of IPPs in 1996.
This paper was prepared by Management Programme in Infrastructure Reform & Regulation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business Breakwater Campus, Cape Town, RSA.