Translating the Sustainable Development Goals in national development planning: the case of Mozambique’s Energy for All Programme
Viegas Filipe, Eleusio; Otsuki, Kei; Monstadt, Jochen
(2021) Sustainability Science, volume 16, issue 6, pp.
(Article)
Abstract
The international community has emphasised the importance of governments adapting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to national policy priorities. Whilst sustainability assessment frameworks and indicators are meant to facilitate adaptation, their assumption of high institutional capacity based on Global North contexts is a shorthand for Global South contexts.
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In particular, limited institutional capacity means that electricity utilities in the Global South struggle with meeting national and international demands to universalise access to basic services for the entire population as well as in ensuring financial sustainability. Based on a case study of the Mozambique government’s National Energy for All Programme, this paper analyses the ways the public electricity company Electricity of Mozambique (known as EDM) has been translating SDG 7.1 on ‘ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services’ into its national political context given the conditionalities of international donors and investors. One outcome of this translation, a compartmentalisation of EDM’s organisational structure, is counterproductive to the integrative and autonomous approach of the SDGs for sustainable development at the national level. To reduce organisational fragmentation and dependency of national project implementers such as EDM on donor interventions, the international community needs to tailor and better align SDG-oriented interventions with the conditions of Southern institutional frameworks and their political contexts.
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Keywords: Electricity, Mozambique, National development planning, SDGs, Sustainability assessment, Global and Planetary Change, Health(social science), Geography, Planning and Development, Ecology, Sociology and Political Science, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
ISSN: 1862-4065
Publisher: Springer
Note: Funding Information: In 2020, the Government of Mozambique published its Voluntary National Review to show its national commitments toward achieving selected SDG targets. As SDG7.1 (ensuring universal access to electricity), was presented as the major public policy goal, the government emphasised the importance of its National Energy for All Programme (Programa Nacional de Energia para Todos). The Programme, launched in 2015 with financial support from the World Bank, aimed to double the electrification rate from 31 per cent in 2018 to 64 per cent by 2024 (Republic of Mozambique , 45; see also World Bank ). The Programme was extended in 2019 with the public electricity provider known as Electricity of Mozambique (EDM) put in charge of ‘densification and extension of national grids’ and National Fund for Energy (FUNAE) responsible for implementing off or mini-grids especially in remote areas (EDM/FUNAE, 2019). In particular, EDM is instrumental in carrying out the electrification policy of the ruling party FRELIMO, which has established and asserted the power of the national government across its territory through electrification (Power and Kirshner ). This government commitment to electrification has led international donors and investors to expand their scope of involvement and influence in electrification projects since the government allowed them to impose conditionality for the implementation of the electrification agenda. Funding Information: The research was conducted at the Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University as a part of the project ‘Coping with Urban and Infrastructural Heterogeneity: Sustainable Energy Transitions in Tanzania and Mozambique’ (URBAN-HIT), funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under grant number W07.303.107. We would like to thank all of the participants taking part in the interview sessions and Community of Practice meetings held in Maputo and Dar es Salaam between 2018 and 2020. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).
(Peer reviewed)
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