AfDB, Bank, World Bank launch Electricity Regulatory Index reports
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (PANA) - The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank (WB) have launched reports capturing the state of the power sector regulation in Africa and across the developing world.
The institutions held a virtual launch event last week, attended by 240 government officials, regulatory entities, development finance institutions and African and international private sector stakeholders, AfDB said in a statement on its website.
The AfDB's Electricity Regulation Index (ERI), published since 2018, has been widely adopted by regulators and other stakeholders across the African continent to benchmark electricity regulatory environments and to guide reforms in the sector, it said.
This new fifth edition covers 43 of the 45 African countries that host independent regulatory authorities.
The statement said this year also marks the inaugural edition of Global Electricity Regulatory Index (GERI) 2022, sponsored by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP) and undertaken in partnership with the AfDB.
GERI surveys 82 non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from across the globe – about half in Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America – and forms part of the World Bank’s global effort to promote a robust electricity sector regulatory environment.
Wale Shonibare, Director for Energy Financial Solutions, Policy and Regulation at the AfDB noted that the Bank has pioneered efforts to mainstream electricity sector regulation issues in Africa since 2018, supporting the establishment of robust legal and regulatory frameworks and creating enabling environments for private sector investment.
“This year heralds a crucial new stage for our research thanks to our collaboration with the World Bank. This allows us to compare African regulation with that of other developing regions and shows that the ERI has been influential not only in Africa but also the rest of the world,” Shonibare said.
“While a lot of progress has been made with the establishment of regulatory frameworks, the Global Electricity Regulatory Index report highlights some systematic gaps, particularly with regard to regulatory independence and the practice of tariff regulation,” said Vivien Foster, World Bank Chief Economist for Infrastructure.
Among the key highlights of the ERI are that although still at a low level of development, the average score for the ERI 2022 has improved slightly to 0.495 compared to 0.456 in 2021.
This year’s ERI shows that most countries have continued to strengthen their regulatory governance structures and have recorded improvements in technical regulation to enhance regulatory capacity.
The ERI also highlights that 30 of the 43 African countries surveyed have either amended their regulatory laws and instruments or have enacted new ones, addressing weaknesses that were identified through the ERI.
Among the key highlights of GERI is the statistic that the average score was 59 percent in 2021, representing an intermediate stage of development of power sector regulations in developing countries, with considerable room for improvement and the need for further action to strengthen regulatory frameworks.
When it comes to regulatory governance, the most prevalent shortcomings are related to regulatory autonomy, with a global average score of 29 percent on regulatory independence from stakeholders.
-0- PANA MA 12Dec2022
