The Energy sector first came to the general attention of those working in development following the oil crises of the 1970s. Governments and donors concentrated initially on the areas of large-scale industrial energy supply and urban energy production and distribution. Biomass, the most commonly-used fuel in many developing countries, was largely ignored.
With the emphasis shifting to both rural development and the environment during the late 1970s and early 1980s, household energy use in developing countries began to attract attention. Improved cookstoves projects were mounted and forestry initiatives taken. Typically, these would be done through one ministry, such as forestry, energy, or the environment. Improvements were made, but success was often limited and many interventions did not live up to high expectations due to, among other things:
* the „top-down" and „supply-led" nature of programmes, which did not take into account the practices and needs of (usually women) end-users. They were outside interventions, rather than locally-designed solutions to local problems;* insufficient attention to the policies and institutional structures needed to support the long-term success of programmes;
* the technology-centred nature of programmes - an over-reliance on technology sometimes resulted in a failure to recognize the broad social dimensions and the cross-sectoral nature of the issues;
* a lack of attention to the informal sector, (comprising 80% of the energy industry in some countries);
* the limited nature and scope of the programmes which often relied heavily on expatriate input but failed to establish the structures needed for transfer to local management;
* poor understanding of the fuel flows and processes involved, and of the complexity of the rural household economy.
Since the middle of the 1980s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to establish wide-ranging policies and cross-sectoral structures, covering such areas as health, education, agriculture, women, fiscal policies, legal and banking structures, and urban and rural planning, and to tackle the problems of working with participatory and cross-sectoral methods.
