Energy planning in low- and middle-income countries is increasingly shaped by international partnerships that provide modelling tools, analytical support, financing, and policy advice. These collaborations can strengthen technical capacity and improve access to evidence, but they also raise important questions about how modelling assumptions, scenarios, data, and institutional relationships influence national planning priorities. In many contexts, evidence use is not purely technical: it is shaped by political economy, donor priorities, institutional capacity, procurement arrangements, and the agency of domestic actors. Understanding these dynamics is essential if energy modelling collaborations are to support legitimate, locally owned, and effective policy processes.    

This project builds on the EIA-K work, which explored the dynamics of international modelling collaborations within the Kenyan context. We extend this work through a comparative three-country study of Kenya, Ghana, and Zambia. These countries provide a strong basis for comparison since all have active energy planning processes, substantial engagement from international organisations, and growing demand for integrated, evidence-based planning, but they differ in institutional arrangements, policy priorities, modelling histories, and donor landscapes.