Rural Energy and Development: improving energy supplies for 2 billion people: a World Bank best practice paper (Draft)

This paper envisages a renewed commitment by the World Bank to support its member countries' efforts to extend modem energy supplies to populations still without them and to promote the sustainable supply and use of biofuels for as long as they remain important sources of energy. Modem energy is defined to include new forms of renewable energy. The purposes of the paper are threefold. First, it argues why meeting the energy needs of rural-and also unserved urban- populations is a priority for sustainable economic development. Second, it reviews twenty-five years of experience with rural energy programs in developing countries; it finds that notwithstanding some mistakes, in any approaches are working well and provide an excellent basis for a substantial expansion of effort to address rural energy problems. Third, it seeks to disseminate and share these lessons of experience with others on whom much responsibility will fall for the implementation of policies; indeed, the preparation of the paper itself entailed extensive sharing of experiences between representatives of the Bank, industry, and numerous governmental and nongovernmental organizations