Priming the Pump in South Africa.(Editorial)

It has become generally accepted that increased electrification is a key requirement for sustainable growth in developing countries. The reason for this is clear: electricity's intrinsic attributes of flexibility, precision, reliability and efficiency lie at the heart of industrial productivity economic growth, environmental quality and technological progress. Financing and constructing the thousands of gigawatts of power plants that will be needed for global development over the next 50 years will be no easy task. But even if we do get the generation and delivery infrastructures built, we have solved only part of the problem.

For many countries, the goal of spurring …