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Abstract
A notable feature of development aid since the 1960s has been a paradigm shift from centralised project planning and management to decentralised approaches. The transition from top-down to bottom-up elevates the concept of localism in project management for vulnerable groups. This change resonates well in community-based resource management schemes in privileging the locale in terms of generation of knowledge and how problems and remedies are enunciated. Localism conceptualised as devolving central-level government functions to non-state actors in social service delivery is contradictory and seems to negate state powers. This paper explores this trajectory to explicate the forms of localism and the contradictions from its multiple conceptualisations that influence energy access. Using qualitative methodology and interviews, it analyses renewable energy projects directed at poverty alleviation in rural communities in Nigeria while deploying a political ecology framework of power relations to highlight the dynamics of localism. While localism is touted as a constraint in the development process due to localism of action, the paper demonstrates its prospects and how scaling-up of operations may augur well for altering its conceptualisation and with far-reaching consequences for community sustainable energy projects.
Notes
The Naira is unstable against the dollar. At the time of writing US$1 is approximately N150.00.
See the report on “State of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Nigeria”. Available from:www.pgrfa.org/gpa/nga/Nigeria.pdf [Accessed 4 April 2013]; Deforestation rate in Nigeria. Available from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/deforestation_in_Nigeria [Accessed 28 March 2013].