This study presents the results of a survey and analysis of the data available on private participation in the power sector in the period 1990-2002, pointing to a series of preliminary findings, and identifies areas where deeper policy analysis is needed so that modalities for public-private...

Over two thirds of Nigeria's population resides in rural areas. Increasingly, poverty in the country is wearing a rural face. From 28.3 percent in 1980, poverty among the rural population grew to 51.4 percent in 1985, has since risen to 69.8 percent in 1996. Poverty tends to affect men and women...

The main aim of this World Bank-ESMAP project has been to pave the way for picohydro to become accessible to low-income households in Ecuador, with the view to replicating the process in the Andean region and other developing countries. This has been done through five main activities: (1)...

The Charcoal Emergency Project took place from January to June 1999 in the Tololar community, Posoltega, Nicaragua. The objective of the project was to "harvest" (or collect) the logs and trees that fell and were washed away in the Posoltega area during hurricane Mitch and the flood it caused,...

The World Bank is supporting a number of initiatives to rationalize the downstream oil sector of Sub-Saharan African countries. Such initiatives include the phasing-out of leaded gasoline (part of the pollution reduction programs), the harmonization of fuels technical specifications between...

Liquid biofuels made from biomass are attracting increasing interest worldwide. Industrial countries see biofuels as a way of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector and diversifying energy sources. Developing countries see biofuels as a way to stimulate rural...

There is now a strong foundation of good practice emerging from past and ongoing renewable energy (RE) projects, whether supported by the WBG or others, making it possible to develop and implement future projects faster, at lower costs, and with greater confidence in their overall...

The ESMAP Bolivia country program phase II (ESMAP II) consisted of two main components : rural energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE). The activities under these components were designated to help the government consolidate the achievements of phase I and make further progress in : a) strengthen...

The problems facing the fuel wood sector in Nicaragua can be summarized as follows: First, almost all harvest or production is based on non-sustainable forestry, with little or no regulation or enforcement of wood cutting laws, no incentives for conservation and no long-term supply-side...

This report builds upon a large body of work on household energy carried out by World Bank and other researchers during the 1980s and 1990s. Much of that earlier research was based on specialized energy surveys (see Barnes and others (2002) for a summary of many of the earlier findings). The...