energy access

More from the Series

TESTIMONY
Energy in Africa Promotes US Economic and Security Interests
November 01, 2017
Todd Moss testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy at a hearing titled “Energy and International Development” on November 1, 2017...
POLICY PAPERS
The Electricity Situation in Ghana: Challenges and Opportunities
Ebenezer Nyarko Kumi
August 29, 2017
In the past decade, Ghana has experienced severe electricity supply challenges even though installed generation capacity has more than doubled over the period. The electricity supply challenges can be attributed to a number of factors, including a high level of losses in the distribution system as w...
POLICY PAPERS
Financing for Whom by Whom? Complexities of Advancing Energy Access in India
July 25, 2017
This paper finds that end-user financing (i.e. consumer subsidies and tax rebates) is relatively ineffective at enhancing sales of off-grid solar technologies in India. If the government is to make meaningful progress toward its national goal to extend a constant supply of electricity to every house...
Blog Post
Are India’s Government-subsidized Solar Shops Thriving or Barely Surviving?
June 15, 2017
We present results below from a survey of shop owners who are part of the Indian government’s Akshay Urja Solar Shops program. To our knowledge, the Akshay Urja program has not previously been evaluated. These results build on a case study featured in an upcoming CGD policy paper on clean ener...
Blog Post
Do African Countries Consume Less (or More) Electricity than Their Income Levels Suggest?
May 31, 2017
 Are some countries too poor to consume a lot more energy? Or is income growth being held back by a lack of reliable and affordable electricity? While there is a strong relationship between energy consumption and income, the direction of causality is often far less clear. One way to e...
Blog Post
The Informal Sector: What Do We Know So Far?
April 25, 2017
The informal sector is a major source of economic activity and job opportunities in poor countries as well as emerging economies. In sub-Saharan Africa, the size of the informal sector is estimated to employ over 70 percent of the population. Why do businesses remain informal? What gains i...
CGD NOTES
A Note on the Informal Sector
April 25, 2017
This work analyzes fresh data made available by updated, more comprehensive Enterprise Surveys of formal firms of various sizes and, importantly, of informal firms. It concentrates on five countries (the DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, and Rwanda) to provide more fine-grained insights into differences i...