Energy Transitions and Investment in Emerging Markets: Navigating Shifting Undercurrents
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2025-04-15
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The Energy Transitions and Investment in Emerging Markets: Navigating Shifting Undercurrents summit was convened on April 8, 2025, during a moment of profound disruption and transformation. In an era marked by the dismantling of US foreign assistance programs and rising pressures on multilateral systems, the event brought together the Duke University community and leading practitioners to take stock and ask urgent questions about what comes next. This summary highlights key insights and takeaways from the day’s conversations—from the real-time consequences of US policy shifts to the rise of country-led alternatives to aid dependence to new models for capital mobilization, enterprise resilience, and student-driven innovation. It also reflects on the evolving role of universities like Duke in supporting evidence-based policy, centering local leadership, and catalyzing inclusive, pragmatic solutions to global challenges. These discussions will help inform the next chapter of the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project’s work and offer a snapshot of a community deeply engaged in supporting the energy transition journeys across low- and middle-income countries.
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Elsharief, Mirna, and Jonathan Phillips (2025). Energy Transitions and Investment in Emerging Markets: Navigating Shifting Undercurrents. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33052.
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Jonathan Phillips
Jonathan Phillips is the Director of the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke University, with an appointment at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. His work focuses on policy, regulatory, and economic issues related to rural electrification, grid de-carbonization, off-grid energy systems, and energy for productivity.
Phillips was the senior advisor to the president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation during the Obama Administration, helping scale-up the agency’s climate finance capabilities and lead the implementation of strategic initiatives, including the agency’s $2.1 billion Power Africa portfolio.
Before that, Phillips led private sector engagement and programming with Power Africa at USAID, helping ramp-up the $300 million presidential initiative into one of the largest public-private development partnerships in the world.
From 2007-2014, he held a variety of roles in the U.S. Congress, most recently serving as the senior policy advisor to Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. He supported many notable legislative efforts, including serving as one of the lead authors of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that passed the House in 2009. He also served on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming as well as the House Natural Resources Committee.
Phillips was a business and economic development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Mongolia. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Milwaukee School of Engineering and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
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