Message-ID: <199703100728.QAA23065@inetnif.niftyserve.or.jp> Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 16:24:00 +0900 From: FORWARDED by MS <mailto:QWA01214@NIFTYSERVE.OR.JP> Subject: UNITED NATIONS: Third World Lacks C To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 09:11:54 -0800 (PST) From: Babatunde Harrison <mailto:baba@igc.apc.org> Errors-To: mailto:owner-nigeria-watch@igc.org/* Written 2:38 PM Mar 5, 1997 by newsdesk in igc:ips.english */ /* ---------- "UNITED NATIONS: Third World Lacks C" ---------- */ Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved. Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 02-Mar-97 ***
Title: UNITED NATIONS: Third World Lacks Capital for Energy Needs
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 (IPS) - The international community will need to find an additional 300 billion dollars annually to meet the world's energy needs by the year 2020, according to a new report released here.
''We don't know from where the money will come,'' says Anders Wijkman, Assistant Administrator of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP). And he adds that developing nations have increasingly difficulty in obtaining the necessary capital for energy-related infrastructure projects.
''If you spend more on energy, you have less capital for development needs,'' he adds.
The UNDP, he says, is trying to assist developing nations to minimise investments in energy through efficiency and the use of alternative energy technologies that require lower expenditures of foreign exchange earnings.
''The daunting problems of poverty and environmental destruction cannot be solved without an immediate focus on the critical role of energy in development,'' he notes.
Launching a new report on global energy problems, Wijkman said that in more than 30 countries, energy imports exceed 10 percent of the value of all exports, a heavy burden on their balance of trade that often leads to debt problems. These countries include Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mozambique, Niger, and Mauritania.
In about 20 developing countries, payments for oil imports exceed payments for external debt servicing and these countries include Cambodia, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Jordan, South Korea, Liberia, Mauritius, Armenia, and Togo.
Titled 'Energy after Rio,' the study says that the level of worldwide investment in the energy supply sector is projected to increase from the current 450 billion dollars to 750 billion dollars by 2020.
''Such investment levels cannot be sustained by traditional sources of energy financing,'' it notes.
The study has been released ahead of the special session of the U.N. General Assembly which will assess the state of the world's environment five years after the June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It says that in recent years, the financing of large-scale electric power projects in developing countries has become problematic.
''With the international debt crisis that began in 1982, investments began to fall. External financing also dropped,'' the study says.
Under-pricing of electricity has also meant utilities have little or no retained earnings. And their shaky financial condition has given them poor credit ratings in international commercial capital markets, the study argues. At the same time, governments that have historically provided much of the necessary capital now face mounting fiscal constraints that make it ever more difficult to supply major capital for electric utilities.
Also, multilateral financing agencies are able to provide only a small fraction of the capital needed, the study notes. Official development finance has also declined as a proportion of total funding and is expected to diminish further.
''The search for new sources of finance has led to a drive for privatisation in the energy sector in order to attract private capital,'' the study says.
UNDP Administrator Gus Speth said Friday an estimated 1.5 to 2.0 billion people, out of a total world population of 5.8 billion, continue to live without electricity. And about 2.0 billion people still use fuel-wood and animal dung for their cooking.
Speth said that energy problems were having a ''devastating effect both on the poor and on the environment.''
The study identifies three major areas aimed at reorienting the development of the world energy system to meeting global objectives: more efficient use of energy, especially at the point of end-use; increased utilisation of modernised renewable sources of energy; and making full use of the next generation of technologies to utilise fossil fuels. (END/IPS/td/yjc/97)
Origin: Rome/UNITED NATIONS/ ----
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