Ivan Nygaard

Measures for diffusion of solar PV in selected African countries

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how African governments are considering supporting and promoting the diffusion of solar PV. This issue is explored by examining so-called ‘technology action plans (TAPs)’, which were main outputs of the Technology Needs Assessment project implemented in 10 African countries from 2010 to 2013. The paper provides a review of three distinct but characteristic trajectories for PV market development in Kenya (private-led market for solar home systems), Morocco (utility-led fee-for service model) and Rwanda (donor-led market for institutional systems). The paper finds that governments’ strategies to promoting solar PV are moving from isolated projects towards frameworks for market development and that there are high expectations to upgrading in the PV value chain through local assembly of panels and local production of other system elements. Commonly identified measures include support to: local production; financing schemes; tax exemptions; establishment and reinforcement of standards; technical training; and research and development.

The conceptual and practical challenges to technology categorisation in the preparation of technology needs assessments

The strong focus in climate negotiations on the transfer and diffusion of technologies as a means to mitigate and adapt to climate change has entailed various programs to promote the transfer and diffusion of climate technologies, including the Technology Needs Assessment project (TNA). Despite the technology focus in the project, practice shows that the questions of what a technology is and how the key concepts of technology transfer and diffusion should be understood and operationalized remain diffuse. This paper explores the reasons for this by analysing the experience of the TNA project in using a framework for categorizing technologies according to the types of markets and non-markets in which they are diffused. While the framework has contributed to a higher degree of ‘market literacy’ among national stakeholders, four challenges in categorizing technologies have been identified: i) technologies comprising varying degrees of software, orgware and hardware; ii) technologies appearing as whole systems of production; iii) technologies covering different application markets; and iv) technologies situated on a continuum between research, development and diffusion. These challenges are proxies for the challenges in formulating plans of actions for technologies. If, due to a lack of conceptual clarity, it is not clear to countries whether the diffusion of a specific technology should be implemented by a project or by means of an enabling framework, the measures proposed in the action plans may be misleading. We therefore call for an increased focus on clarifying the technology concept in the training for the next generation of TNAs.

Flood management in urban Senegal: an actor-oriented perspective on national and transnational adaptation interventions

In Senegal, considerable development assistance has been allocated to addressing the problem of repeated flooding in urban areas, involving changing thematic objectives, from short-term disaster relief to wide-ranging sanitation and drainage programmes. In spite of these numerous flood management interventions, the number of flood victims in Senegals urban centres has increased steadily since 1999. This article contributes empirically and conceptually to recent studies highlighting poor national disaster risk management frameworks in West Africa, by investigating how floods have been managed in Senegal and why this management has not led to the results expected by the population. The article finds that the configuration of flood management policies and programmes in urban Senegal points towards three key intertwined issues which have influenced the limited achievements of flood management in urban areas. These include, but are not restricted to, the political and personal appropriation of flood management-related processes, the reinforcement of the dichotomy between central government and municipalities, and a fragmented institutional framework with overlapping institutions.