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From Energy Access to Economic Empowerment: Workable Models for Financing a Just Transition in Emerging Markets
Today 2.1 billion people live without clean cooking fuels and technologies, and over 660 million people lack electricity access. Yet as Anthony Osijo at Bboxx points out, as global conversations largely focus on decarbonizing energy resources to combat climate change, these millions of households still cannot access essential products and services the rest of the world takes for granted. He argues that emerging markets can't simply be left in the dark because their kerosene lamps and diesel generators aren’t environmentally viable, especially if they lack access to suitable alternatives. He explores ways to finance and deliver a just climate transition — while also eradicating energy poverty.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Convincing Customers to Buy What’s Best for Them: How Lessons from Clean Cooking Can Increase the Adoption of ‘Merit Goods’
Despite their clear benefits, “merit goods” — products or practices that improve both individual and societal welfare — often struggle to achieve widespread adoption. As Jean-Louis Racine at the Clean Cooking Alliance explains, even when these products and behavior changes offer solutions to pressing social and environmental challenges, traditional marketing approaches often fail to build significant consumer demand for them. He examines the clean cooking sector’s experience in selling cookstoves and fuels to emerging markets customers, highlighting effective strategies that can accelerate consumer uptake of these and other merit goods.
- Categories
- Energy
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Turning Failure into Fuel: An Emerging Learning Platform Aims to Bring the Hidden Challenges in Humanitarian Energy to Light
The humanitarian energy sector is eager to learn from success. But according to clean cooking and energy access researchers Nazifa Rafa, Tash Perros, Iwona Bisaga and Ronan Ferguson, its failures are usually buried in reports or quietly brushed aside, and there's often a disconnect between what’s documented in impact reports and what practitioners experience on the ground. They argue that this dynamic is unsustainable in a sector with high risks, urgent needs and shrinking funding. In response, they share an emerging solution: the Humanitarian Energy Learning Platform, a centralized, inter-donor learning system designed to highlight what’s going wrong in humanitarian energy access, and how practitioners can systematically learn from it.
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- Energy
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To Change the World, Change Your Economics: How Degrowth Can Shrink Overconsumption in the Global North While Allowing the Global South to Grow
The global economy largely operates under a neoclassical economic structure, which emphasizes a reliance on markets, a deference to the private sector and a focus on constant growth. But according to Matt Orsagh and Steve Rocco at the Arketa Institute, this structure has a fatal flaw: It operates on a planet with finite resources and limited places to put our waste, but assumes that economic growth can go on forever. They argue that the world needs a new form of economics that reflects our environmental realities, one focused on "degrowth" — i.e., an effort to equitably downscale production and consumption in the Global North, without putting undue restrictions on the development of the Global South. They explore what this change might mean for the world's economy, the investing community — and countries in the Global North and South.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Aligning Capital with Justice: How Innovative Finance Can Enable the Final Stretch Toward Energy Access in Africa
The world has made unprecedented progress toward universal energy access, and today over 90% of the global population has electricity. But as Roeland Menger at Nithio explains, the remaining 10% live in rural and low-income communities — primarily in Africa — that typical business and funding models can't reach. He argues that the exclusion of these markets is not only ineffective but unjust, and highlights several innovative investment approaches that are expanding decentralized energy to the last mile.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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The Circular Solar Opportunity in Africa: How Refurbishing Solar Systems Can Reduce E-Waste and Expand Energy Access
While working in the bustling solar energy scene in Ethiopia, Zelalem Nigatu at Inter Ethiopia Solutions noticed a disheartening trend: Mountains of solar home systems were being discarded due to minor issues that could have been fixed by trained technicians with access to spare parts and the proper tools. He explores how Inter Ethiopia Solutions is tackling this challenge through a systematic approach to refurbishing solar home systems and repurposing lithium-ion batteries, enabling it to offer affordable off-grid energy solutions while reducing e-waste.
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- Energy, Environment, Technology
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Redefining Fairness: How Second-Degree Price Discrimination Can Bring Greater Access to Essential Goods and Services in Emerging Markets
Second-degree price discrimination is a pricing model in which customers are offered a lower price point in exchange for a lower level of quality or convenience, or a lower price per unit in exchange for purchasing a larger amount of the product. According to Wasiu Akintunde at Texas Tech University, this approach can benefit not only businesses, but also governments, NGOs and the communities they serve. He explores how this pricing model can be designed ethically and effectively to bring necessary products and services to multiple income segments in emerging markets.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
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Connected Power: Ensuring Africa is Not Left in the Dark — or Offline
Sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest energy access and digital connectivity gaps in the world. As Ravi Suchak at Helios Towers explains, this is due not to a lack of demand, but to fundamental infrastructure barriers: Telecom towers and mobile networks require a reliable power supply, which is often absent or prohibitively expensive in rural areas, and electricity providers need consistent demand to de-risk rural energy investments. He explores a solution that addresses both of these needs: "connected power," a development approach that aligns energy and telecom infrastructure by positioning telecom towers as anchor customers for electrification projects.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology, Telecommunications
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