Book Chapter
A Review of the Nature of Foreign Aid to the Energy Sector over the Last Two Decades

Chap. 5 reviews the key enabling conditions of transforming the energy system and the foreign aid policy prerequisites which will determine, to a large extent, its impacts on global climate change as well as how such systems can adapt to a context of growing energy scarcity.

It is argued that support of sustainable energy, until recently, has been the stepchild of foreign aid and its efficacy has thus been questioned. The review here suggests that while there is still much room for improvement in terms of effective use of foreign aid for sustainable energy and climate protection, things have been getting better.

It is also pointed out that foreign aid has been instrumental in promoting many renewables and efficiency projects that would possibly have not been implemented in developing countries without official development assistance flows.