Graduation Year

2022

Date of Submission

12-2022

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

International Relations

Reader 1

Professor Jennifer Taw

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© 2022 Grace A Hickey

Abstract

Renewable energy projects in lower income countries have the potential to help these countries reduce their impact on and become more resilient to climate change, while also increasing their populations’ access to energy and thus potential for sustainable improvement in their quality of life. These projects often rely on foreign investing, and this type of investment has dramatically ramped up in recent years. Yet, these projects still face a high failure rate, and governments and investors have not yet developed consistent frameworks for producing renewable energy projects that ensure both investor returns and positive community outcomes. This thesis predicts that better, in-depth, ongoing consultation with key stakeholders at multiple project levels can produce better outcomes. A stakeholder analysis on 2 World Bank-funded case studies in Kenya, and two in the Philippines, investigates this hypothesis. This analysis finds that certain key metrics for project success are greatly improved by stakeholder engagement, and that stakeholder engagement is a more important determining factor in project outcomes than project size or level of grid-connectivity, which contests much of the existing literature. This thesis then makes recommendations on how investors and governments can improve their stakeholder engagement during the development of renewable energy projects and thus produce better project outcomes, especially for the communities living on or-near project sights who are often sidelined during the process of renewable energy project implementation.

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