The energy poverty nexus in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

Energy access remains one of the forgotten millennium development goals, despite being a key ingredient to sustained and equitable socio‐economic growth and development. This article looks at the energy poverty nexus in the Middle East and North Africa, a region frequently overlooked in the study of energy access owing to its significant hydrocarbon wealth, and the impact energy poverty has made on parts of the region. A closer look reveals the puzzling picture of a region divided between energy abundant states and states with continuingly high rates of lacking access to electricity and secure supply of modern fuels. The existence of some of the worst cases of energy poverty in the MENA in net exporters of oil and gas such as Yemen and Egypt further demonstrates that energy poverty is effectively a domestic distributive problem, rather than one caused by a country's lacking natural resources. The article explores the main causal factors and suggests short‐ and long‐term policy remedies.

Investigating critical resource determinants of start-ups: An empirical study of the MENA region

“…The MENA region is noted for the availability of various forms of energy, which is its greatest asset. Even though some of the countries in the region, such as Egypt and Yemen, are struggling with their energy levels, the results indicate that general access to electricity in the region supports venture creation and business growth (El-Katiri, 2014). The MENA region is noted to boast of about 57% of all global oil reserves and 41% of all natural gas sources.…”

“…Therefore access to energy remains one of the major goals of all countries since it became part of the millennium development goals (MDGs). Even though the MENA region is noted for having an abundance of oil reserves, some of the countries in the region-such as Yemen and Egypt-have demonstrated different levels of energy poverty, which has contributed negatively to the growth and operation of businesses (El-Katiri, 2014).…”

“…Middle-income countries such as Morocco have rural electrification rates of less than a fifth of all households, and the same situation exists in most of the MENA countries, where about 38% of MENA's population lives. Mostly, the lack of access is due to the inability of households to access energy due to its high cost (El-Katiri, 2014). For instance, there is a lack of electricity coverage across many of the lowincome MENA countries, whereby an estimated 20 million people lack access to basic levels of electricity.…”

“…Apart from financial resources, access to other critical resources such as electricity is crucial for start-ups. An efficient and cheap source of energy is considered one of the major drivers of startups in an economy (El-Katiri, 2014). Other factors, such as growth in a regional economy, improvements of higher rates of return for entrepreneurs and an increase in regional financial concentration, have all been noted in the entrepreneurship literature to have contributed positively to startup rates (Gries & Naude, 2009).…”

“…Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Algeria have high access to electricity and modern fuels, whilst Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen still face scarcity when it comes to energy sources. (El-Katiri, 2014). As far as the author is aware, few studies have investigated the three critical determinants of start-ups listed above.…”