PROFESSOR BADISSY JOINS ENERGY FOR GROWTH HUB AS ADVISOR

Mohamed BadissyMay 2020 — Professor Mohamed Rali Badissy recently was invited to join the nonprofit organization Energy for Growth Hub as an advisor on energy finance. The Energy for Growth Hub is comprised of scholars and advocates from leading universities, think tanks, and other organizations around the world, including Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Michigan, UC-Berkeley, Rice, Colorado School of Mines, and Chicago, the World Bank, and think tanks in Abuja, Accra, Bangkok, Cape Town, Jakarta, Nairobi, New Delhi, and Washington.

With support from heavyweights including the Rockefeller Foundation and Pritzker Innovation Fund, the Energy for Growth Hub was founded in 2018 as a network of scholars and advocates from around the world to promote and achieve ambitious energy goals and advance data-driven solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. When asked about formally joining that network, Professor Badissy responded, “One of the biggest challenges in developing power projects in emerging markets is the disparity in access to consistent and credible information for both developers and regulators. This makes negotiation of power projects unnecessarily complex and prone to corruption, and I am excited to work with the Energy for Growth Hub to bring greater transparency to these power markets.”

Given both his professional background and current research focus, Professor Badissy was tapped specifically to advise the Hub on energy finance. The Hub is working to fill the space between the goals of numerous international players (including outside governments and development finance institutions) dedicated to the general expansion of energy access and the specific needs of governments that are seeking private investment to satisfy this demand. Professor Badissy sees his role as continuing to advocate for greater transparency at each step of the power purchasing agreement (PPA) process, sharing, “Right now, the market is bankrupt of information since you only have the aspiration of what the contract should look like prior to negotiation but not the reality of the outcome of an informed negotiation process. The Hub understands this, and we will work together to continue pushing for greater disclosure and transparency.” 

Professor Badissy is working with the Energy for Growth Hub staff to co-author a white paper that outlines a viable PPA transparency framework for emerging markets, expected to be released in 2021.


Professor Mohamed Rali Badissy currently serves as an Assistant Professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, where his research focuses on driving investment into sustainable energy projects through contract standardization and regulatory predictability. He previously served as the Senior Attorney for Energy and Finance with the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce, advising governments in emerging markets on commercial law reforms intended to increase energy access through private investment in energy infrastructure. Badissy has advised energy sector reform efforts in 60+ emerging markets in partnership with host governments, multilateral institutions, civil society organizations and industry leaders, and continues to serve as an advisor to both public institutions and private developers. His work with governments in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia has often leveraged principles of Islamic Finance to attract new sources of investment in energy infrastructure.