Developing Country Programs

For more than twenty years, ORNL has been active in energy and environmental collaborations with developing countries.  Projects have involved more than forty countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East; and they have included every major kind of energy technology and policy, along with a wide range of environmental technologies and policies. This support has involved more than 100 ORNL staff members from 8 Divisions of the Laboratory, plus several hundred other consultants and a number of subcontractors (when authorized by USAID).

ORNL’s capabilities include:

  1. Subject Matter Capabilities
    • Clean energy development
    • Environmental policymaking and institution-building
    • Responding to concerns about global environmental change
    • Assessing regional and sectoral vulnerabilities associated with global climate change
  2. Regional Capabilities
  3. Cross-Cutting Capabilities
    • Program development
    • Program monitoring and evaluation
    • Institution-building
    • Information systems
    • Technology transfer

Major developing country projects and programs have included:

  • Assistance to USAID’s Office of Energy with energy planning program activities between 1982 and 2004.
  • Assistance to USAID/Guatemala in serving as the Mission’s environmental officer and managing the Maya Biosphere Project, 1990-1999.
  • Assistance to USAID/Liberia in national energy planning, 1982-85.
  • Assistance in developing USAID’s Climate Change Initiative, 1997-2001.
  • Assisting USAID/India with energy and environmental strategic planning, 1994-1999.
  • Assistance to USAID/Caribbean Regional Programs in conducting project on clean energy technology technologies and strategies for island nations, including developing a regional Renewable Energy Centre in Barbados
River Basin Management in Southern Africa