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Energy transition in the global south: Donor bargains and the future of the aid machine
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DOI：10.1016/j.erss.2025.104525.png)
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Abstract
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Africa remains the final frontier for universal energy access, with most of the 750 million people lacking access to electricity residing on the continent. While there is little resistance to the idea that development assistance is pivotal to Africa's energy transition, the forty-year precedent of aid for development in Africa raises the question of why aid for the energy transition should perform any better. This paper argues that the problem lies not in aid itself but in the bargaining process that accompanies it, which undermines learning-by-doing and weakens institutional capacity. Using an empirically tested Donor-Bargain Model, the study examines how financial stress conditions donor-government bargaining outcomes. The analysis shows that these bargaining dynamics reinforce dependence by constraining institutions' ability to sustain implementation without external support. Accounting for this dependence reveals how donor scaffolding inflates reported institutional capacity. The paper extends elite theory by conceptualising donor-elites, actors who wield ideological, political, and economic power to downplay the long-term economic costs of building internal capability. This process reinforces weak institutional quality and limits Africa's ability to drive its own energy transition. These findings suggest that aid reform efforts should focus less on resource volumes and more on reshaping bargaining dynamics to strengthen institutional learning. Finally, the model also serves as a diagnostic tool for assessing whether donor-government bargaining outcomes are compatible with long-term institutional capacity development. Conceptually, the paper draws on institutional economics, development studies, sociology, and political science.
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