With the energy needs of over 3 billion people and climate change at stake, clean energy deployment must accelerate at an unprecedented rate.

What Happened: Ghana’s utility regulator recently launched a public register of power purchase agreements (PPAs) to share information on all 14 of the country’s active electricity contracts covering both renewable and non-renewable power projects.

The purpose of a nation’s power sector is to deliver reliable electricity at the lowest cost and for the greatest benefit.

Originally published in the IMF Public Financial Management Blog, June 21, 2022.  Soon after the reformist businessman Hakainde Hichilema won Zambia's presidency in August 2021, he learned that his country’s finances were far worse than he feared.

To meet clean energy and energy access goals, we need to rapidly scale electricity through transparent, competitive power markets. But in most emerging markets, power contracts shrouded in secrecy prevent this progress. We launched our new initiative, PPA Watch, to shed light on the problem of secret power purchase agreements.