Incentivizing Grid Reliability: A Framework for Performance-Linked Electricity Improvements in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

October 2025

Reliable electricity is the foundation of modern economies and essential to social and human development. Without it, firms cannot expand, hospitals cannot operate safely, and households hesitate to invest in appliances and tools that improve daily life. It is reliability—not just connection—that unlocks the full promise of access: delivering jobs, growth, and opportunity. Yet across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), ensuring electricity reliability has proven to be one of the most intractable energy systems challenges.

Today, key underlying conditions have shifted, opening an opportunity to directly focus finance and accountability toward improvements in service quality. Technologies like smart meters, feeder sensors, and cloud-based analytics are now affordable and practical to deploy even in weak-grid contexts. Development finance is moving decisively toward results-based mechanisms, and the political economy of the power sector is evolving with new actors—from distribution companies and private utilities to mini-grid and energy service operators—demonstrating accountability models that put performance at the center.

What is needed next is a bold new approach that empowers locally led innovation to close the reliability gap. There is a window to act decisively by realigning incentives with results to unlock meaningful gains in productivity, service delivery, and equitable energy access.

Against this background, on October 14, 2025, the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke brough together experts from the infrastructure and electricity sectors for a panel discussion on fostering electricity reliability through performance-linked incentives.

The session was kicked off with a presentation on the linkages between reliable electricity, economic growth, and sustainable development, delivered by Stephane Straub, Chief Economist for Infrastructure at The World Bank. The presentation laid a strong foundation for the panel discussion, moderated by Jonathan Phillips, Director at the The James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke, that delved into:

• Push and pull incentives to improve electricity reliability, by Leah Rosenzweig, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and Director at the Market Shaping Accelerator
• Implementation of performance-linked models within a broader reform agenda, by Justice Mensah, Senior Economist, Africa Region Chief Economist Office at The World Bank
• Role of innovative technologies for monitoring and measurement, by Noah Klugman, Co-founder and CEO at nLine
• Evidence from low- and middle-income countries, by Robyn Meeks, Assistant Professor at Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
• Best practices and lessons learned from Ghana, by Nicholas Afari Frempong, Senior Manager of Energy Services at Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) – Ghana

This event built upon the newly released working paper “Incentivizing Reliability: A Framework for Performance-Linked Electricity Improvements in Low- and Middle-income”, a product of collaborative efforts by experts from Duke University, The World Bank, the Center for Global Development, and other organizations. This paper is intended to guide and inform the hard conversations and coalition-building needed to seize that window, helping operators, funders, and governments chart a path toward reliable power systems that deliver on the full promise of electrification.