The power of an electric bolt, circuit, and streetlight is undeniable and the myriad ways that electric currents have produced milestones in communication and connectivity are rife. The invention of the light bulb revolutionized societies and provided an impetus for economy in ways that far outpaced any expectations for modern life. The provision of electricity as a powerful fulcrum for industrialization in what are now advanced economies—the United States, Great Britain, and many more—is all the more remarkable because its impact is often overlooked. Electricity has promoted economic growth through invisible linkages that bind: without electricity power lines, lighting at home and in offices, transportation systems and even literacy as well as educational outcomes would be undermined. This functionality is also underscored by the impact of technological progress and innovation that is largely subsumed as one of thousands of nearly invisible inputs that make modern living seamless, accessible and complete. Electricity, for all its purposes, remains one of the most visible yet simultaneously invisible instruments of the twenty-first century. Across much of the developing world or the global south, however, the flick of a light switch is rarely performed with certainty. Access to an amenity largely taken for granted as one of thousands of micro-processes that construe modernity is ultimately a political one. Paradoxically, the race to combat energy poverty is faced by one of the most democratic and promising states in sub-Saharan and West Africa: Ghana—considered a model state for much of the continent. As a country rich in hydropower, with its Akosombo dam and Volta River project, which ambitiously sought to produce aluminum, the promise of industrialization accompanied a competitive vision for a state whose economic growth once rivaled, but has been surpassed by, that of Malaysia. What accounts, then, for the simultaneous success of electrification initiatives in ten administrative regions (akin to states) and disparities between significant sections of the country’s populace since this period?
Energy demand until the twenty-first century appears to have mattered little for much of Africa’s 54 states. For comparison, electricity use for the United States is about 3340 megawatts (MW) per million inhabitants, and about 1680 MW in the European Union, while sub-Saharan Africa’s generation capacity is only about 100 MW per million inhabitants as of 2009.1 Roughly 85% of 585 million people in sub-Saharan Africa without access to electricity live in rural areas; this figure is expected to rise to some 652 million by 2030. 2 Electricity access across the continent, and in developing countries elsewhere, suffers from incongruent conceptualization of what constitutes access, because classifying a village as electrified or not is rarely straightforward. Combined with the reality of considerable variation in the intensity, concentration and levels of electricity use,3 the choice and timing to electrify towns, communities and regions is political because governments remain the primary providers of electricity in the developing world.4 How does political choice shape rural electrification and, ultimately, public service delivery challenges that include potable water, well-constructed roads and open sewage systems? Why are hydro-rich countries energy-poor? Uneven economic and political development after independence muted engagement between state and society. Rich in projected hydropower because of numerous dams, the continent pummeled through the latter half of the twentieth century unhindered by the need for the diversification of energy inputs required for a growing economy. The 1980s and 1990s were a test for the continent’s growth amid economic malaise and political uncertainty. The story of the 1990s for many an African state was how to navigate, if not circumvent, market-oriented reforms required by external donors and international financial institutions in order to reverse the economic pitfalls and the subsequent debt the continent accrued at an unprecedented pace. It is perhaps and singularly unnoteworthy that attempts to swallow a bitter pill of austerity, which paradoxically entailed a reduced role for the state and, consequently, public expenditure, produced a gap in service delivery that required a more interventionist role. Using the lens of political economy, this book explains why energy provision has become a matter for public service delivery and, simultaneously, an important fulcrum for rural development—largely through electricity, which remains promising yet primarily uneven.
Why have African states—despite seemingly ample, if not abundant, hydropower—faltered in providing efficient, steady and affordable access to rural populations who are likely to supply important sources of future capital and growth? What are the pre-requisites for timely, effective provision, given steady population growth and heightened energy demand by domestic populations? As a model state for political and economic governance, this book recounts Ghana ’s experiments with energy provision through dam power. The choice to focus on the rural constituents, including the poor, stems from the simple observation that the rural poor make up a large part of Africa’s populace and are thus difficult to ignore.5 It explains why the country, notwithstanding uneven provision and generation capacity, offers a cautionary tale and yet one of the continent’s best hopes for solving energy poverty. The book also explains why the political leadership in Ghana and, to a lesser extent, in Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe, has circumvented market-oriented and, by extension, power (energy) sector reforms, with differing consequences for electric energy provision in each state. Utilizing the period beginning from the 1990s, a critical period owing to political transitions, fragile, if not nascent, democratic rule, pivotal shifts of power and turbulent politics, the book examines the dynamics of energy provision through the lens of hydropower, and attendant institutions through the primary focus of Ghana, while lesser treatment is given to a small number of sub-Saharan states. The larger question the book answers is how various African states have either navigated market-oriented reforms of “power” or energy sectors to provide domestic supply to key sections of society—the rural populace, where the bulk of Africa’s population resides.
Firstly, this book argues that political survival, state–societal relations, and the uneven agency of civil society actors have conditioned responses to energy provision, supply and demand in Ghana and other states treated in succeeding chapters. Secondly, this book argues that governments have little choice but to circumvent market-oriented policies that, for decades, dictated how African governments manage and structure their economies, if they are to end energy poverty and supply electricity to all domestic consumers. In tandem, the laudable success of a current 80.51% electrification access rate has yielded differential benefits for the rural poor who comprise close to 60 percent of a population of 24 million.6 Conversely, this work demonstrates how current electricity outcomes reflect responsive government and attentiveness to the rural poor, despite unevenness in provision. The contested nature of electricity delivery requires a shift in the Washington consensus regime that dictates questionable prescriptions, most notably privatization and a reduction of social expenditures that hardly treat the underlying malady still persistent despite promising economic outcomes from countries like Ghana. Consequently, the book contends that international financial actors and external donors should, ideally, incentivize energy provision for developing countries by treating electricity delivery as a public rather than private good and market transaction and thus diminish the politicization of electricity as a “have vs. have not” amenity. Developing a compliance framework within pre-existing poverty reduction strategies that tackle the who gets what, where, when and how—in other words, questions of power and political survival—can potentially enhance electric energy outcomes and stem the tide of energy poverty on a continent where almost 600 million out of a population of 1.1 billion lack energy access.7 As the case of Ghana demonstrates, Ghana’s jagged success compared with other African states emanates from its deliberately partial compliance with neo-liberal or market-driven outcomes in its energy sector. The significant political costs associated with market-driven policies that aimed to end the country’s subsidy, or at least limit it, along with pro-poor tariffs designed to cushion vulnerable groups like the rural poor, were decidedly critical for electoral politics.
Case Selection and Study Design
The cases explored in this book focus primarily on Ghana, with a separate chapter/treatment that discusses in a broad overview the energy quandary facing Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In many ways, the selection of Ghana as the focus of the book is fitting. Out of 54 states, Ghana became the first to gain its independence and the first to articulate development plans for fueling industrialization, which included the creation of the world’s largest man-made lake in 1966. After the country’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, articulated ambitious, if not striking, plans for a united continent—in what amounted to a bold pan-African vision of self-sufficiency and economic independence, Ghana was propelled into the limelight. To be sure, plans to produce an aluminum smelting plant were conceived as a bid for modernity and infrastructural development.
However, as the case of Ghana demonstrates, many of these hopes were dashed as foreign industry benefitted from electricity generation while domestic consumers and ordinary Ghanaians enjoyed little to no access for several decades. Thus, the transformation of electricity access from 15% at the beginning of the 1990s to an overall access rate of 80.51% is significant. When weighed against dismal rates elsewhere on the continent, this development stands as a notable development. However, the expansion of access has not managed to reach the rural poor as we might expect. By highlighting the consequences of shifting hierarchies of power implicit in the simultaneous pursuit of political decentralization, democratization and neo-liberal institutional preferences, this work highlights the triumphs and limits of the Ghanaian state in terms of the ubiquitous paradigm and dictum that espouses “minimal government.”8 Optimal provision of electricity to all groups in society was one of several important objectives articulated since the early post-independent period and an explicit goal of succeeding governments in the post-1992 period, but the transformation of access and ...