Dr Andrew Barnett has spent over thirty years working in the development business as a government economist, academic researcher, NGO director, and consultant. He is internationally known for his work on energy, technology policy and underdevelopment.
He is currently a principal in The Policy Practice, a newly-established company set up to provide a political economy perspective on policy and institutional change internationally and in developing countries. He continues as Chair and Managing Director of the UK-based economic research company, Sussex Research Associates Ltd., which he founded in 1985. Mr. Barnett also advises the Shell Foundation on its Sustainable Energy Programme, which supports activities to increase the access of resource-poor people in developing countries to more effective energy services. Since 1996 he has been an independent member of the World Bank/UNDP Technical Advisory Group, which assures the direction and quality of the multi-donor Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). He has recently provided an intellectual framework on energy and poverty for the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, and has been appointed to adjudicate bids on energy and poverty for the UK Government’s Department for International Development’s Knowledge and Research Programme.
Mr. Barnett is a member of the Council and the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the Overseas Development Institute, London and a member of the Boards of Womankind Worldwide and of Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College. He is a Member of the Editorial Board of the international journal World Development and has been an Honorary Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex since June 1966.
From 1994 to 1998 Mr. Barnett was Director of Research at the Intermediate Technology Development Group (an international non-governmental organisation) where he was responsible for the intellectual direction of the Group, its international policy research, and its systems for quality assurance and impact assessment.
From 1987 to 1993 he carried out and managed research as the leader of the Technology and Development Group, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex. From 1978 to 1985, he managed research grant programmes on technology policy and energy policy for the International Development Research Centre of Canada. He has also acted as the Specialist Adviser to the British House of Lords Select Committee on Development Assistance to Science and Technology (1989-90).
He organised and directed the first major evaluation for the Commission of the European Communities of their aid to the energy sector (1986-1987). He has undertaken a number of evaluations of the work of the World Bank, the UK's ODA, the Swedish International Development Authority, and the Danish Aid Programme. He has advised the OECD Development Assistance Committee, UNCTAD and the International Development Research Centre of Canada on various aspects of international technology transfer, energy and the environment.
Overall, he has worked on issues of energy and development since the mid 1970’s with a particular focus on the international transfer of technology, decentralised energy systems, and, more recently, the factors affecting the development of markets for improved energy supplies in rural areas of developing countries. He has a long-standing concern relating to policy research, and building technological capability in developing countries. He has specialised in promoting technical change to secure livelihoods, particularly in the "intermediate" area between the technological frontier of the global economy and the traditional technologies of subsistence.
