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for their ‘up-scaling’ can be elaborated”. Donors can trigger global learning
by introducing mature innovations into other country contexts.
Sustainable learning and scaling up effects have been rare. A lack of project
coherence and harmonisation (as it was formulated from development agencies’ officials)
has meant that the activities can be characterised as failed transition projects that were
not able to spread across the Philippines. They were even used as cases to exemplify the
unreliability of renewable energy sources.
The history of German development cooperation in the field of renewable energy
in Morocco is an example of how trust through long-term cooperation and successful
pilot projects can help set the course for an energy transition. Interview partners
recognised these factors as explaining the role German advice could play in supporting
the development of the national energy strategy. Exogenous factors (steeply rising fuel
prices, increasing financial pressure through fossil fuel subsidies and widely available
financing that had been withdrawn from countries affected by the Arab Spring) opened
a window of opportunity and converged with the experience from earlier small scale
projects to enable the decision for ambitious renewable energy targets and large-scale
solar and wind plans. The experience with solar home systems and the development
of the first wind farms with the help of German KfW, but also French investors in the
1990s, had exposed ONE to renewable energy technologies and might have decreased
(but not erased) worries about the effect of renewables on the grid. As one head of
the unit from the Moroccan energy ministry recalls, “in the framework of this rural
electrification program with decentralised solar energy we organised exhibitions at
the markets for citizens, trained installers and launched pilot projects at Mosques. All
this was the fruit of Moroccan-German cooperation. And all this contributed a lot to
launching the large-scale programs later on.
dos Reis Neto et al.: Strategic orientations and cooperation of external
agents in the innovation process of rural enterprises [35]
The innovation process in rural businesses poses challenges to improving the
products and services offered, assuming that this process requires the development of
capabilities to respond with agility and flexibility to changes and to the environmental
turmoil in which it operates. It is very difficult for a rural business, especially one already
established in the market, to innovate in isolation since it depends on internal and
external contributions and requirements. The uncertainty of the innovation process
leads rural firms to utilise the help, experience and knowledge from external sources
so that these can collaborate in the increased efficiency of the innovative process using
a positioning strategy that will guarantee a better business performance and generate
sustainable competitive advantages developed with unique resources and capabilities.
Specific agents (SA) are buyers, input suppliers (shops, manufacturers and sellers), and
consultants (agricultural technicians, veterinarian, and agronomists) and other similar
producers of agriculture. Consequently, the cooperation of external agents increases the
chances of development for the innovation process.
Generic agents (GA) are external sources from which rural businesses acquire
the knowledge of the new method or the process to improve the production of new