The challenge of increasing access to energy for development

Abstract

This book studies the increase of access to affordable, efficient and reliable energy for development in the twenty-first century with special reference to non-OPEC developing countries. In doing so the book evaluates energy sector reform and liberalization experience since the 1990s in non-OPEC developing countries and the impact of events since 2001 (including the spiking of crude oil prices to US $60 barrel in June 2005). Over 85 net Oil Importing Developing Countries (OIDC) began to reform their economies in some form or other in the 1990s. The guiding principles of energy sector reform in developing countries were part of the overall 1990s globalization framework of market transition for developing countries widely known as the ‘Washington Consensus’. It called for trade and financial liberalization, privatization, deregulation, openness to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a competitive exchange rate, fiscal discipline, lower taxes and smaller government. In spite of the 1990s wave of globalization that prompted developing countries to liberalize and privatize their energy industry to finance the required investment for generating energy supplies for development, it is now clear that only a handful of developing countries were able to attract capital and grow rapidly. Also, in the initial years of the twenty-first century energy black-outs due to shortages of energy supplies for fuel development persist.