Federal energy funding is in retreat. A development veteran’s case for the way forward.

Michael Jordan has spent three decades building energy systems in the developing world — much of it through federally funded programs. As federal support for climate and energy programs contracts, he says it’s time to recalibrate.

“For me, sustainability means increasing the commercial viability of any solution that’s brought to scale,” said Jordan, CEO of Banneker Capital and one of the two inaugural visiting policy fellows at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “Any approach that depends on public sector funding has an inherent vulnerability, and we’re seeing how that vulnerability plays out in real time.”

The fellowship, designed to bring practitioners with deep federal and state agency experience into the university’s research community, paired Jordan with Alice Hill, a former White House senior director for resilience policy. Jordan said the fellowship came at an “inflection point” for the role universities and research institutions play in the policy process. 

Jordan, a diplomat’s son turned Peace Corps volunteer, served in senior roles at USAID and Power Africa, the presidential initiative that has supported more than $24 billion in power sector investment across sub-Saharan Africa. He now leads Banneker Capital, where his focus has shifted toward mobilizing private and institutional capital for clean energy in emerging markets. 

With limited federal support for climate programs, how should energy advocates adapt?

Jordan: Despite the policy changes coming out of Washington, the physical and economic and environmental imperatives remain. The challenges remain. The need for a response remains. The insurance industry is reeling from the range of climate-related emergencies. The need for adaptation among coastal communities and small island states hasn't changed. We need to step back, take stock of our priority areas, see which actors are still engaged — even if it's a different constellation of stakeholders — and re-engage under the current rubric. If there's less common ground, where does common ground remain, and how do we make the most of it.

What are some examples of effective, strategic energy investments?

Jordan: One investment we made at Power Africa was in Climate Investor One, a financing facility managed by Climate Fund Managers. Our early investment was a signal to other investors and development finance institutions that this was a good idea. They were able to raise approximately $950 million in finance for clean energy — this was back in 2015, 2016 — and it was one of the early schemes to mobilize capital for clean energy in emerging markets. They've since developed dozens of projects in Africa and Asia, many already in operation.

A more community-level example is the Health Electrification and Telecommunications Alliance. We saw that cold chains were not as pervasive as they needed to be in healthcare systems, and that many facilities had unreliable power — which made delivering services during COVID-19 an eye-opener. The key to its effectiveness was how communities were engaged from the very beginning, how proposed business models were grounded in local realities, and how that informed the scaling process. Eventually, in conjunction with telecommunications companies, excess capacity from cell tower electrification was redirected to nearby health facilities. Tens of thousands of facilities have been reached.

As public funding shrinks, what roles can universities play in closing the gap?

Jordan: Apart from being incubators for new technologies, moving more into commercialization is something that I think universities could benefit from. I noticed that there are many labs and incubators on campus for tech and establishing  pathways to market and commercialization is something these labs could partner to do more intentionally across disciplines such as with the business school.  And you know it, it may be that universities step up and place a few more resources on these bets than perhaps would normally be done in the past, but the pools of capital for project development, for technology development there, I think we can't pretend like they're not shrinking, and so the way forward is tricky. But I do feel that where there's a potential return, it could make sense for universities to make these investments, or to be a vector to mobilize capital from successful ventures, to bring back into the university environment for potential future unicorns out there.

What has your time at Stanford taught you about the relationship between research and policy? 

Jordan: I've come to realize that we don't benefit enough from what research institutions like the Woods Institute are doing. The knowledge they're aggregating is tremendous. I wish I could explore more of it. This fellowship came at a very interesting inflection point — in terms of policy, in terms of changing government structures. The idea of cross-fertilization has real benefits in the short term through exchanges, but also in the longer term. This exchange  brought people together for only a quarter. It was effective, all the same, in opening  doors for meaningful work we should do in the future.  I look forward to what we might accomplish together in bridging the energy gap in emerging markets.

Michael Jordan is currently serving as Chief Executive of Banneker Capital. He brings over 20 years of experience driving transformative investments and strategic partnerships across emerging markets, with a particular focus on Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.