Policy and regulatory challenges in decentralised renewable energy deployment: Case studies from Nigeria, Liberia, and Malawi

Decentralised renewable energy (DRE) systems are widely acknowledged as a pragmatic route to universal electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa; yet, the comparative evidence on how regulatory weaknesses alter their scalability remains thin. Existing syntheses predominantly examine stable political economies (such as Kenya and Rwanda), leaving the political-economy dynamics of fragile states understudied. This paper closes that gap by analysing how policy and regulatory frameworks shape the deployment of DRE outcomes in Nigeria, Liberia, and Malawi, three countries that score below regional means on the African Development Bank's Electricity Regulatory Index and the World Bank's Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy. Employing a qualitative comparative case-study design, we (i) trace within-case causal chains through document-based process-tracing and (ii) test cross-case convergence using pattern-matching on six governance dimensions validated by recent benchmarking literature. The evidence base integrates legal texts, donor reports, and the Electricity Regulatory Index/Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy time series, triangulated to ensure reliability and validity. Findings reveal that overlapping mandates, weak enforcement capacity, and fragmented donor engagement systematically hinder the deployment of DRE, whereas targeted policy innovations, such as Nigeria's state-level minigrid licensing, demonstrate pathways to improvement. We offer actionable lessons on institutional alignment, donor coordination, and tariff reform that can inform regulatory upgrades in similarly constrained settings. By foregrounding fragile-state contexts, the study enriches comparative DRE scholarship and provides a diagnostic framework that is transferable to other low-capacity energy systems.