Publication:
Employment Impacts of Clean Energy Investments in Emerging Economies: A Review of the Literature and Methodologies Used in Assessment

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.04 MB)
208 downloads
Date
2024-03-22
ISSN
Published
2024-03-22
Editor(s)
Abstract
Significant scale-up of clean energy, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency, is the most important component of worldwide efforts to address climate change and increase energy access. As clean energy makes a growing contribution to the total energy supply, as countries undertake their energy transitions, it is also expected to create millions of jobs. This review is part of an investigation into how the global energy transition - the move away from fossil fuels, which involves the adoption of new technologies and new service delivery models in the sector can contribute to job creation and support economic activity while advancing the global decarbonization agenda. The objective of this literature review is to understand how existing academic and policy work has assessed the impact of energy-transition-related policies, regulations, and investments on job creation, wages, and other employment-related outcomes. This review covers studies of energy sector jobs as well as jobs created in upstream sectors resulting from energy-transition-related investments and policy changes. The review also includes studies of wider, often economywide, “induced” employment effects. In particular it focuses on the impact of electrification programs using distributed renewable generation, since such programs make it possible to establish causality in job creation more clearly than clean energy projects contributing additional power to existing grids.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). 2024. Employment Impacts of Clean Energy Investments in Emerging Economies: A Review of the Literature and Methodologies Used in Assessment. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41259 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
    Jobs generated by the Kosovo Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-22) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    The Kosovo Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project (KEEREP) successfully generated direct and indirect employment opportunities in Kosovo through EE retrofits and related activities. The project also contributed to skill development and market growth in the EE sector, potentially leading to further job creation in the future. However, challenges related to the importation of materials and the need for domestic certification were identified as areas for improvement in facilitating domestic job growth. This case study seeks to shed light on the employment impacts associated with World Bank financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy investments in public buildings overseen by the central government as part of the KEEREP.
  • Publication
    Search for Clean Cooking Energy
    (Washington, DC, 2022-12) World Bank; Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    About two-fifths of the developing world lacked access to clean cooking energy services in 2020. Bottled gas is a clean cooking fuel but is subject to large price volatility and not affordable for many. Electricity is safe and convenient but may not be reliable or affordable. Densified wood pellets in advanced combustion stoves offer an alternative but require careful handling to achieve clean combustion. This brief reviews the pros and cons of these predominant forms of clean cooking energy, focusing on bottled gas.
  • Publication
    Tracking Jobs in Projects Focused on Clean Energy and Productive Uses of Electricity
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-30) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    The transition to clean energy can create job opportunities and support economic activity while advancing the global decarbonization agenda. Many aspects of this transition - including investments in renewable energy; grid strengthening to absorb variable renewable power; decentralized generation, including for energy access; digitization of the energy sector; energy-efficient appliances; and energy efficiency in buildings, industry, and transport have significant potential to create both domestic and local employment. Expanded and improved energy services can not only create jobs in the energy sector, but also boost economic activity and job creation in the broader economy. The expansion of access to energy increases its productive uses. Meanwhile, the retirement of fossil-fuel fired plants and mine closures, among other changes in a clean energy transition, could also potentially lead to job losses. These losses must be accounted for and managed under the global decarbonization agenda. Before providing an overview of what we know of the energy transition’s employment impacts, this discussion paper will focus on job categories.
  • Publication
    Jobs Generated by the Energy Sector Support Project in Malawi
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-23) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    Rural electrification projects in Malawi generated substantial direct and indirect employment opportunities, particularly in construction and skilled roles. The projects also had an impact on gender disparity in employment and highlighted the need to strengthen domestic capacity for materials and equipment production. Moreover, improved access to electricity and enhanced reliability had positive effects on job creation and enterprise development in the region. This case study seeks to shed light on the employment outcomes associated with the investments made in Malawi’s distribution network including rehabilitation, upgrade, and expansion of priority segments of the existing distribution system under the World Bank–financed Energy Sector Support Project (ESSP), which was approved in 2011 and closed in 2018.
  • Publication
    Energy Storage for Mini Grids
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-05) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
    This report specifically focuses on battery energy storage in decentralized off-grid mini grids located in remote areas. It provides an overview of battery technologies used in mini grids globally, demand forecasts for various battery technologies, a comparison of characteristics of different batteries, an exploration of costs and trends in battery technologies, case studies, and recommendations. It also includes appendices that offer a broad overview of mechanical, electrochemical, and thermal storage, as well as performance optimization of lead acid batteries in mini grids.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Dominican Republic Poverty Assessment 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-08) World Bank
    In recent decades, economic growth in the Dominican Republic (DR) has been steady. However, growth has not occurred in such a way as to make the benefits widely and evenly available. In fact, although the DR economy grew faster than that of other LAC countries before the Covid-19 pandemic, its poverty rates and social outcomes remain broadly similar to them. This report seeks to explain this conundrum, as well as to expand the knowledge base to improve the effectiveness of ongoing poverty reduction policies in the DR. The Poverty Assessment draws primarily on new analytical work conducted in the DR, structured around four background notes on: (i) trends in monetary poverty and inequality, as well as the key drivers of those changes; (ii) nonmonetary poverty and its spatial dimensions; (iii) social assistance programs and their role in mitigating poverty; and (iv) climate change and its interaction with poverty. By helping to reduce the evidence gap in each of these areas, our analysis hopes to inform government policies and the national dialogue on poverty reduction. In addition, the note integrates existing analytical work and evidence produced inside and outside the Bank, including from its operations in the country.
  • Publication
    At Your Service?: The Promise of Services-led Growth in Uzbekistan
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-07) World Bank
    In Uzbekistan, the services sector accounts for more than half of all jobs and has been central to the process of structural transformation over the past three decades. In the past decade, the growth of Uzbekistan’s services exports has lagged behind its manufactures' exports while FDI greenfield announcements to both sectors have been even. The growth of the services sector in the past five years was driven by social services, mostly reflecting increased public spending. This report groups the services sector into four categories based on their skill intensity, the extent of their linkages with other sectors, and their tradability in international markets: low-skilled consumer services, low-skilled enabling services , global innovator services. Of these groups, social services accounted for three-fourths of employment growth in the services sector between 2017–2022. These services also experienced relatively high rates of labor productivity growth, which was largely driven by higher public spending on wages and salaries.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    Adaptation of the Calculator of Social and Environmental Impacts from Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Amazon
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-09) World Bank
    Over the past decade, illegal gold extraction has increased significantly in the Amazon region, partly due to the high international prices of this mineral, the less stringent attitude of some countries in relation to the environment and the pursuit of immediate economic opportunities. Furthermore, this illicit activity is closely intertwined with other illegal practices, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the trafficking of endangered species. This has repercussions not just for the region's ecological wealth, but also for the physical well-being of those safeguarding their lands and the health of communities living in proximity to the extraction zones due to the contamination of their rivers and, consequently, their primary sources of food, such as fish. Despite the international effort to recognize the socio-environmental repercussions of this activity, there are still gaps on this issue, mainly due to the economic losses that this activity represents.
  • Publication
    Unlocking Blue Carbon Development
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-11) World Bank
    The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical framework to guide governments in catalyzing and scaling up public and private investment in Blue Carbon as part of their blue economy development. It does this by describing in detail a Blue Carbon Readiness Framework, a step-by-step, well-illustrated guide with simple checklists. Client countries can use the illustrations and checklists to determine their readiness to catalyze and scale up investment in blue carbon credit finance. The Blue Carbon Readiness Framework consists of three pillars: 1. Data and Analytics; 2. Policy and Institutions; 3. Finance.