Publication:
Lao PDR - Power to the People : Twenty Years of National Electrification

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.28 MB)
840 downloads
English Text (246.13 KB)
107 downloads
Date
2012
ISSN
Published
2012
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report documents the Lao People's Democratic Republic's success story in rapid national electrification integrated within a broader strategy of national and rural development. In fifteen years (1995-2009), electricity access more than quadrupled, from about 15 percent in 1995 to 69 percent in 2009 -- and the program is on track to achieve the government's target of 70 percent national coverage by 2010 year-end. This expanded electricity access resulted in over 700,000 household connections by 2009 year-end, from about 120,000 households connected in 1995. The government of Lao PDR (GoL) has pursued a pragmatic and purposeful approach. Further, a series of government policy initiatives helped steer the rapid liberalization and modernization of the national economy, as a consequence of which the economy has grown at an average annual rate of 6.5 percent since 2001. The key to the successful implementation of the national electrification program in Lao PDR has been its institutional model of grid extension and rollout driven by the national electricity utility, Electricite du Laos (EDL). The government recognized from the start that state subsidies would be required to ensure retail tariffs and the connection fee for grid access would be affordable by poorer segments of the population, especially as the grid s reach extended deeper into the rural areas of the country, where the vast majority of the population resides and incomes typically decline. The Power to the Poor (P2P) Program implemented by EDL is a targeted, subsidized, affordable, and sustainable financing mechanism for connection and indoor wiring. Lao PDR is on the threshold of graduating from Least Developed Country status. The power sector has been a key partner in the nation s development so far. However, looking ahead, new demands and expectations of the sector pose new and different challenges.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2012. Lao PDR - Power to the People : Twenty Years of National Electrification. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12900 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Reducing Technical and Non-Technical Losses in the Power Sector
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07) Antmann, Pedro
    This document reviews experience with efforts in developing countries by private as well as state-owned electricity companies to reduce total losses in transmission and distribution and provides examples of sustainable reductions.
  • Publication
    Mali's Infrastructure : A Continental Perspective
    (2011-06-01) Briceno-Garmendia, Cecilia M.; Dominguez, Carolina; Pushak, Nataliya
    Despite external shocks, Mali's economy grew by 5.3 percent per year between 2003 and 2006, driven primarily by the telecommunications sector. But Mali's landlocked condition, together with the uneven distribution of population and economic activities between the arid north and the much richer south, defy the country's ability to sustain this pace of growth. Mali depends heavily on regional infrastructure and transport corridors. A strategic focus on regional integration has paid off, and critical institutional decisions are bringing many positive developments. But Mali still faces infrastructure challenges, the starkest of which lies in the power sector. The cost of producing power in Mali is among the highest in the region, with the result that only around 17 percent of the population has access to electricity, much lower than in other low-income African countries. The water and sanitation sectors also represent a challenge, as the nation works to separate the power and water-and-sanitation functions of EDM, the multisector utility. Mali spent about $555 million per year on infrastructure during the late 2000s. A total of $200 million is lost annually to inefficiencies. Assessing spending needs against existing spending and potential efficiency gains leaves an annual funding gap of $283 million per year.Mali will likely need more than a decade to reach the illustrative infrastructure targets outlined in this report. Under business-as-usual assumptions for spending and efficiency, it would take over 50 years for Mali to reach these goals. Yet with a combination of increased finance, improved efficiency, and cost-reducing innovations, it should be possible to reduce that time to 15 years.
  • Publication
    Mali Infrastructure
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06) Briceno-Garmendia, Cecilia M; Dominguez, Carolina; Pushak, Nataliya
    In recent years Mali's economy has grown steadily at a rate of more than 5 percent per year, driven by developments in gold mining, cereal harvests, and telecommunications. Mali's landlocked condition, together with its very uneven distribution of both population and economic activities between the arid north and the much richer south, challenge the country's ability to sustain this pace of growth. These two aspects define and challenge Mali's development and the infrastructure agendas. The country's strategic focus on the regional agenda has paid off to date, and critical institutional decisions are bringing many positive developments. More than 80 percent of Mali's segments of the West Africa road corridors are maintained in good or fair condition, giving the principal production areas of the south alternative access to the deep-water ports of Dakar, Adidjan, Takoradi, Tema, and Lome. Air transport security has improved, supported by the refurbishment of local airports, including Bamako airport, and the restructuring of Mali's Civil Aviation Authority to increase its autonomy and guarantee harmonization of air transportation rules across West Africa. Mali has also successfully liberalized its mobile telephone markets, with access approaching 40 percent in 2008. Roaming agreements and cross country competition have kept mobile prices low. Access to electricity in Mali more than doubled in the last decade, helped by the introduction of an apparently successful program for rural electrification (AMADER) that widened access to more than 36,000 rural households.
  • Publication
    Turning the Lights on Across Africa
    (Washington, DC, 2013-04) World Bank
    Africa is in the midst of a power crisis. Despite abundant low-carbon, a low-cost energy resource, Africa faces chronic energy shortages. The region s power generation capacity is lower than that of any other region in the world, and when compared with other developing regions, its capacity growth has stagnated. The power crisis is the result of several constraints that, together, create a vicious cycle. Africa's electricity access is the worst in the world. Almost 70 percent of the continent s population (nearly 600 million people) and 10 million small- and medium-sized enterprises have no access to electricity. Sub-Saharan African's(SSA) account for nearly 45 percent of people lacking electricity across the globe. Most regions in the world have urban electrification rates of 90 percent or higher; in SSA, less than 60 percent of those living in urban areas have electricity. If current electricity connection trends continue, fewer than 40 percent of SSA countries will reach universal access to electricity by 2050.
  • Publication
    Underpowered : The State of the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-05) Briceño-Garmendia, Cecilia; Eberhard, Anton; Ouedraogo, Fatimata; Foster, Vivien; Shkaratan, Maria; Camos, Daniel
    Sub-Saharan Africa is in the midst of a power crisis marked by insufficient generating capacity, unreliable supplies, high prices, and low rates of popular access to the electricity grid. The region's capacity for generating power is lower than that of any other world region, and growth in that capacity has stagnated. The average price of power in Sub-Saharan Africa is double that of other developing regions, but supply is unreliable. Because new household connections in many countries are not keeping up with population growth, the electrification rate, already low, is actually declining. The manifestations of the current crisis are symptoms of deeper problems that are explored in this study of power sector institutions in 24 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, which draws extensively on a new body of research undertaken as part of the multi-donor Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD). There are nearly 60 medium- to longer-term power sector projects involving the private sector in the region excluding leases for emergency power generation. Almost half of these are independent power producers (IPPs). Involving more than $2 billion of private sector investment, these IPPs have added early 3,000 MW of new capacity. A few IPP investments have been particularly well structured and contribute reliable power to the national grid.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-10-02) World Bank Group
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016 is the first of an annual flagship report that will inform a global audience comprising development practitioners, policy makers, researchers, advocates, and citizens in general with the latest and most accurate estimates on trends in global poverty and shared prosperity. This edition will also document trends in inequality and identify recent country experiences that have been successful in reducing inequalities, provide key lessons from those experiences, and synthesize the rigorous evidence on public policies that can shift inequality in a way that bolsters poverty reduction and shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. Specifically, the report will address the following questions: • What is the latest evidence on the levels and evolution of extreme poverty and shared prosperity? • Which countries and regions have been more successful in terms of progress toward the twin goals and which are lagging behind? • What does the global context of lower economic growth mean for achieving the twin goals? • How can inequality reduction contribute to achieving the twin goals? • What does the evidence show concerning global and between- and within-country inequality trends? • Which interventions and countries have used the most innovative approaches to achieving the twin goals through reductions in inequality? The report will make four main contributions. First, it will present the most recent numbers on poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality. Second, it will stress the importance of inequality reduction in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity by 2030 in a context of weaker growth. Third, it will highlight the diversity of within-country inequality reduction experiences and will synthesize experiences of successful countries and policies, addressing the roots of inequality without compromising economic growth. In doing so, the report will shatter some myths and sharpen our knowledge of what works in reducing inequalities. Finally, it will also advocate for the need to expand and improve data collection—for example, data availability, comparability, and quality—and rigorous evidence on inequality impacts in order to deliver high-quality poverty and shared prosperity monitoring.
  • Publication
    Doing Business 2020
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) World Bank
    Doing Business 2020 is the 17th in a series of annual studies investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. It provides quantitative indicators covering 12 areas of the business environment in 190 economies. The goal of the Doing Business series is to provide objective data for use by governments in designing sound business regulatory policies and to encourage research on the important dimensions of the regulatory environment for firms.
  • Publication
    The African Continental Free Trade Area
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-07-27) World Bank; Maliszewska, Maryla; Ruta, Michele
    The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement will create the largest free trade area in the world, measured by the number of countries participating. The pact will connect 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a combined GDP valued at $3.4 trillion. It has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035. But achieving its full potential will depend on putting in place significant policy reforms and trade facilitation measures. The scope of the agreement is considerable. It will reduce tariffs among member countries and cover policy areas, such as trade facilitation and services, as well as regulatory measures, such as sanitary standards and technical barriers to trade. It will complement existing subregional economic communities and trade agreements by offering a continent-wide regulatory framework and by regulating policy areas—such as investment and intellectual property rights protection—that have not been covered in most subregional agreements. The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects quantifies the long-term implications of the agreement for growth, trade, poverty reduction, and employment. Its analysis goes beyond that in previous studies that have largely focused on tariff and nontariff barriers in goods—by including the effects of services and trade facilitation measures, as well as the distributional impacts on poverty, employment, and wages of female and male workers. It is designed to guide policy makers as they develop and implement the extensive range of reforms needed to realize the substantial rewards that the agreement offers. The analysis shows that full implementation of AfCFTA could boost income by 7 percent, or nearly $450 billion, in 2014 prices and market exchange rates. The agreement would also significantly expand African trade—particularly intraregional trade in manufacturing. In addition, it would increase employment opportunities and wages for unskilled workers and help close the wage gap between men and women.
  • Publication
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-10-07) World Bank
    Previous Poverty and Shared Prosperity Reports have conveyed the difficult message that the world is not on track to meet the global goal of reducing extreme poverty to 3 percent by 2030. This edition brings the unwelcome news that COVID-19, along with conflict and climate change, has not merely slowed global poverty reduction but reversed it for first time in over twenty years. With COVID-19 predicted to push up to 100 million additional people into extreme poverty in 2020, trends in global poverty rates will be set back at least three years over the next decade. Today, 40 percent of the global poor live in fragile or conflict-affected situations, a share that could reach two-thirds by 2030. Multiple effects of climate change could drive an estimated 65 to 129 million people into poverty in the same period. “Reversing the reversal” will require responding effectively to COVID-19, conflict, and climate change while not losing focus on the challenges that most poor people continue to face most of the time. Though these are distinctive types of challenges, there is much to be learned from the initial response to COVID-19 that has broader implications for development policy and practice, just as decades of addressing more familiar development challenges yield insights that can inform responses to today’s unfamiliar but daunting ones. Solving novel problems requires rapid learning, open cooperation, and strategic coordination by everyone: from political leaders and scientists to practitioners and citizens.
  • Publication
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-10-17) World Bank
    The World Bank Group has two overarching goals: End extreme poverty by 2030 and promote shared prosperity by boosting the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each economy. As this year’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity report documents, the world continues to make progress toward these goals. In 2015, approximately one-tenth of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and the incomes of the bottom 40 percent rose in 77 percent of economies studied. But success cannot be taken for granted. Poverty remains high in Sub- Saharan Africa, as well as in fragile and conflict-affected states. At the same time, most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries, which tend to have higher national poverty lines. This year’s report tracks poverty comparisons at two higher poverty thresholds—$3.20 and $5.50 per day—which are typical of standards in lower- and upper-middle-income countries. In addition, the report introduces a societal poverty line based on each economy’s median income or consumption. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle also recognizes that poverty is not only about income and consumption—and it introduces a multidimensional poverty measure that adds other factors, such as access to education, electricity, drinking water, and sanitation. It also explores how inequality within households could affect the global profile of the poor. All these additional pieces enrich our understanding of the poverty puzzle, bringing us closer to solving it. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/PSP