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291. Should Regulators Make Electric Utilities Pay Customers for Poor Reliability?

Author:
Shefali Khanna and Kevin Rowe
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In September 2017, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) required that the city’s regulated electricity distribution utilities pay compensation to customers experiencing power outages of three hours or longer. The measure was intended to incentivize the utilities to invest in the infrastructure and management practices needed to deliver higher levels of service quality. In 2019, India’s central government announced that it was considering rolling out a similar policy for utilities across the country. Can outage compensation policies help India’s power system achieve better reliability for all customers? This policy brief describes the persistent challenge of poor electricity reliability in India and how it interacts with key regulatory policies, analyzes Delhi’s experience with outage compensation since 2017, and highlights areas for additional economic and policy research on this topic.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, Natural Resources, Infrastructure, Economic Policy, and Electricity
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia-Pacific

292. Africa’s Digital Divide and the Promise of E-learning

Author:
Matthias Krönke
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
According to UNESCO (2020), approximately 1.2 billion students and youth worldwide are affected by school and university closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To adjust to these new circumstances, governments must develop innovative solutions to ensure inclusive learning opportunities during this period of unprecedented educational disruption. This is especially true in African countries, where despite recent progress traditional education has faced infrastructural challenges and struggled to develop the human resources necessary to address students’ educational needs (Krönke & Olan’g, 2020; United Nations, 2019; UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2016. This policy paper uses Afrobarometer survey data to look at digital infrastructure, the availability of digital devices at the household level, and digital literacy among African adults. While rates of digital literacy among children are likely to differ, it is important to understand these dynamics among adults for at least two reasons. First, adults are likely to shape children’s access to and experience with technology. Second, understanding current levels of access to devices and levels of digital literacy among adults provides a baseline against which future assessments can measure progress over time. Survey findings from Afrobarometer Round 7 (2016/2018) show a substantial digital divide both across and within countries, reflected in uneven access to resources such as electricity and unequal access to and use of smartphones and computers. The results suggest that government efforts to redress widespread inequalities need to be increased drastically to avoid the widening of an education gap among their citizens. The paper also discusses the potential benefits of providing smartphones and computers to those who currently do not have access to such devices.
Topic:
Education, Infrastructure, Inequality, Digital Economy, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
Africa

293. Lived Poverty on the Rise: Decade of Living-Standard Gains Ends in Africa

Author:
Robert Mattes
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
Economic destitution – whether measured as the frequency with which people go without basic necessities or as the proportion of people who live on less than $1.90 a day – declined steadily in Africa between 2005 and 2015. However, the findings of Afrobarometer Round 7 surveys, conducted in 34 African countries between late 2016 and late 2018, demonstrate that improvements in living standards have come to a halt and “lived poverty” is once again on the rise. To prevent squandering hard-won gains in Africans’ living standards, the data point to the necessity of a renewed commitment by citizens, governments, and international donors to defending democracy and expanding service-delivery infrastructure. Key findings Between 2005 and 2015, Afrobarometer surveys tracked a steady improvement in the living conditions of the average African. Measured as the frequency with which people go without a basket of basic necessities (food, clean water, health care, heating fuel, and cash income), “lived poverty” dropped in a sustained fashion over this period – a trend matched by consumption-based estimates of poverty by the World Bank. The most recent Afrobarometer surveys, however, suggest that Africa is in danger of squandering these gains in living standards. While the citizens of most African countries are still doing better than they were in 2005/2006, deprivation of basic necessities – captured by our Lived Poverty Index – has increased in about half of surveyed countries since 2015. The trend is similar for “severe lived poverty,” the extent to which people experience frequent shortages of basic necessities. Lived poverty varies widely across the continent. At one extreme, people rarely experience deprivation in Mauritius. At the other, the average person went without several basic necessities several times in the preceding year in Guinea and Gabon. In general, lived poverty is highest in Central and West Africa, and lowest in North Africa. Lived poverty also varies widely within societies. Reflecting the legacies of the “urban bias” of successive post-independence governments, rural residents continue to endure lived poverty far more frequently than those who live in suburbs and cities. A multilevel, multivariate regression analysis of more than 40,000 respondents across Africa reveals that people who live in urban areas, those who have higher levels of education, and those who have a job (especially in a middle-class occupation) are less likely to live in poverty, as are younger people and men. But besides personal characteristics, we locate even more important factors at the level of government and the state. First, Africans who live in countries with longer experiences of democratic government are less likely to live in poverty. Second, people who live in communities where the state has installed key development infrastructure such as paved roads, electricity grids, and piped-water systems are less likely to go without basic necessities. Indeed, the combined efforts of African governments and international donors in building development infrastructure, especially in rural areas, appears to have played a major role in bringing down levels of poverty – at least until recently.
Topic:
Poverty, Infrastructure, Inequality, and Local
Political Geography:
Africa

294. I Need You, I Don’t Need You: South Africa and Inga III

Author:
CIC Congo Research Group
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
A new report from CIC’s Congo Research Group and Phuzumoya Consulting, I Need You, I Don’t Need You: South Africa and Inga III, places South Africa’s backing of Inga III in the context of its foreign policy. The report argues that South Africa’s current Inga policy is contradictory, oscillating between the desire to project an image of being a pan-Africanist power promoting the continent’s economic development, and the reality that committing to the project makes little financial or energy policy sense. A power purchasing agreement from South Africa is critical for the dam’s construction—but buying electricity from Inga III will be risky for South Africa, especially since it may end up being expensive than other sources. The resulting uncertainty about whether South Africa will ever really be an anchor client for Inga III thus puts into question the bankability—and indeed the feasibility—of the whole project.
Topic:
Energy Policy and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, and Congo

295. Georgia’s Doomed Deep-Sea Port Ambitions: Geopolitics of the Cancelled Anaklia Project

Author:
Maximilian Hess and Maia Otarashvili
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
Georgia has long sought to take advantage of its strategically important location and establish itself as a significant transit hub connecting Europe and Asia. This endeavor has been slowly advanced by an array of innovative economic reforms, as well as some successful, smaller infrastructure and development projects. However, it has also been marked by repeated failures in making larger-scale initiatives happen. Despite its 190-mile-long Black Sea coastline, Georgia still does not have a deep-sea port, and enjoys very limited overall maritime capacity. This shortcoming poses a major impediment on the country’s aspirations of becoming a significant hub for the Eurasian transit system.
Topic:
Infrastructure, Geopolitics, Maritime, and Port
Political Geography:
Eurasia and Georgia

296. Lack of Demand: The Coronavirus Pandemic and China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Author:
Felix Chang
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which arose in China and swept around the globe, has devastated the lives of hundreds of thousands. But however large the health impact of COVID-19 ultimately is, hundreds of millions more have already felt its economic impact. With people worldwide ordered to social distance and stay at home, entire industries have been shuttered. And though national economies will recover in time, fully restoring them may prove to be a slow process. No doubt, the longer the disease lingers, the longer an economic recovery will take. That could create one more economic casualty: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Topic:
Infrastructure, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Coronavirus, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and Asia

297. Energy Poverty in Zambia

Author:
Bernard Tembo, Rabecca Hatoongo-Masenke, and Chama Bowa-Mundia
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
Of the estimated 3.01 million households in Zambia, in 2015, only 35.8% and 16.1% utilised clean energy fuels for their lighting and cooking services respectively1 (CSO, 2016). Usage and access to clean energy is essential for economic growth, human development and more generally poverty reduction. This notwithstanding, access has remained low in many developing countries. For instance, 1.1 billion of the total global population do not have access to electricity, of which majority are found in Asia, Africa and Oceania (United Nations, 2016). Furthermore, the majority of this population is found in rural areas. Given the centrality of energy to people's everyday life, governments worldwide have devised di erent policies and mechanisms to enhance the use of clean energy. Limited access and use of clean energy is mainly thought of as an issue of a ordability (Barnes and Floor, 1996; Pachauri et al., 2004; Rosnes and Vennemo, 2012; Murtaza and Faridi, 2014; Ismail and Khembo, 2015; GRZ, 2017; Venkateswaran et al., 2018; Kyprianou et al., 2019; Oum, 2019; Yan et al., 2019). Hence, the subsidy policies being implemented in many countries. On the one hand, it has been observed that lack of access to clean energy is a sign of poverty; while on the other hand, access to clean energy helps in the alleviation of poverty (Pachauri et al., 2004; Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Okwanya and Abah, 2018). However, in some cases, access to clean energy is hampered by both the price of the energy (i.e. an a ordability issue) and by availability of infrastructure to deliver the required energy. Thus, in such situations, some governments have had to borrow to facilitate the development and expansion of energy infrastructure; on top of subsidising the use of clean energy. This notwithstanding, the lack of use of clean energy at household level is not well understood. For instance, it is thought that if a household is classi ed as income poor, then it will not be able to use electricity (Pachauri et al., 2004; Murtaza and Faridi, 2014). And in such cases, some governments opt to implement subsidy policies. While this approach has proved useful for some households, it is not an e ective approach of delivering clean energy to the people who need it the most. There is, therefore, great need to identify aspects that determine whether a household would have access to clean energy and let alone use it. This knowledge would be critical in designing policies that hope to increase utilisation of clean energy fuels. As such, this paper sought to understand energy poverty among households in Zambia. Energy poverty is a concept concerned with lack of access and use of modern energy fuels.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Poverty, Infrastructure, and Electricity
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

298. Building the Banking Sector’s Capacity for Green Infrastructure Investments for a Low-Carbon Economy

Author:
Takashi Hongo and Venkatachalam Anbumozhi
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The construction of green infrastructure, using advanced technology and retiring inefficient technology, is essential for the low-carbon transition. Various green infrastructure programs are being implemented, and banks play an important role in facilitating these programs. Many lessons have been learned in improving finance for green infrastructure: (i) measurement, reporting, and verification is a useful tool for identifying green infrastructure investment; but just reduction is not enough for Green Infrastructure and three requirements – carbon dioxide emission reductions, improving energy access, and contributions to sustainable economic growth – connected with the Sustainable Development Goals are necessary; (ii) banks can contribute to realising a positive cycle of cost reduction and diffusion of advanced technology for reducing costs by scaling up markets; and (iii) carbon pricing is essential for removing carbon externalities and making green infrastructure commercially viable. Banks are recommended to have long-term strategies, improve their capacity for scenario analysis, have more dialogue with industry, and develop innovative finance such as carbon markets. Governments are recommended to adopt carbon pricing to encourage finance for green infrastructure.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Infrastructure, Green Technology, Renewable Energy, and Banking
Political Geography:
Global Focus

299. Information and Communication Technology in the Lives of Forcibly Displaced Persons in Kenya

Author:
Mirko Eppler, Stella Gaetani, Patrick Köllner, Jana Kuhnt, Charles Martin-Shields, Nyat Mebrahtu, Antonia Peters, and Carlotta Preiß
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
There is a great deal of potential for digital tools to help refugees, but there are still major economic and infrastructure hurdles before all refugees are online. Evidence from three sites in Kenya provide evidence that can guide future digitalization efforts for working with refugees.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Communications, Infrastructure, Refugees, Displacement, and Information Technology
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

300. Immigration and U.S. National Security: The State of Play Since 9/11

Author:
Amy Pope
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
The wide-ranging reforms that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States significantly strengthened the national security capabilities of immigration agencies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created to bridge gaps between the intelligence community and immigration functions. Yet, the restructuring was not comprehensive, and threats to national security continue to evolve. In addition, while the tendency to frame immigration policy through a security lens predates the Trump administration, this now routine practice clouds the picture of who and what pose a threat. This report takes a critical look at the increasingly complex security threats U.S. immigration policy must manage—from public-health emergencies, such as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, to the activities of transnational criminal organizations. It assesses the tools available to respond to these threats, and the successes and challenges to date in innovating as risks evolve. To do so, it traces the evolution of the country’s immigration and border control system, with a focus on how institutions and processes have developed since 9/11. While the U.S. government has made important progress in shoring up weaknesses in its defenses at the nexus of immigration processes and national security, this analysis identifies a number of critical gaps that remain—from a need to more clearly define mission space, to effectively sharing information and transitioning to electronic-based systems. Under the Trump administration, resources and political will have also been steered away from core DHS national security missions, including disaster response, cyber security, and general policy and planning in favor of immigration enforcement measures focused on low-risk unauthorized migrants and asylum seekers. The challenge ahead, the author writes, is to “rebuild the department’s credibility at home and with foreign partners, while recalibrating resource allocations and strengthening its capacity to respond to and manage the most pressing national security threats.” This report is part of MPI’s multiyear Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, which aims to generate a big-picture, evidence-driven vision for the role immigration can and should play in America’s future. To learn more about the initiative and read related research, check out the initiative's home page.
Topic:
International Cooperation, National Security, Immigration, Infrastructure, Governance, Border Control, Refugees, Resettlement, and Asylum
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America