Whose Energy Future Counts? Narratives, Power, and Recognition Justice Around Energy Access in Senegal and the DRC

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a distinct disconnect often exists between local energy narratives and dominant policy narratives on energy access. While local accounts are grounded in immediate, lived experience, official policy narratives tend to present a different conceptualisation of energy systems, priorities, and solutions. This divergence influences governance, as various national agencies, each with their own institutional focus, legitimise and propagate competing narratives, contributing to fragmented policy approaches. This paper analyses these “narrative-disconnects” within the contexts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Senegal, building on the 13 dominant narratives about energy systems identified by Holden et al. (2021). While this framework provides a general typology, the specificity of local contexts inevitably generates adapted or emergent narratives. Moving beyond mere identification, the paper investigates the strategies stakeholders employ to promote their narratives and gain legitimacy within the prevailing energy discourse. The study draws on interviews and focus-groups from a two-month fieldwork in the Casamance region, Senegal, and stakeholder interviews in the DRC. This paper employs a comparative case study between Senegal (∼82% electricity access) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (∼20%). This deliberate pairing of a high-access and a low-access context allows for an analysis of how similar stakeholder narratives and conflicts over recognition and power can form despite divergent national conditions. Preliminary findings illustrate opposing narratives. Local narratives describe populations experiencing energy deprivation and perceiving solar power as less reliable than grid electricity. The reputation of decentralised solar technology has been undermined by historical market conditions and technical shortcomings. Markets were flooded with low-quality solar products that failed prematurely, cementing a local narrative of solar energy as inherently “weak” or unreliable. This perception is reinforced by maintenance challenges, as repairs depend on distant suppliers, limiting local capacity-building and deepening marginalisation. This local narrative stands in contrast to official policy perspectives. For instance, Senegalese policymakers often attribute system unreliability not to the technology itself, which they view as sound, but to a perceived information asymmetry. They suggest that potential users, fearing exclusion or higher costs, may under-declare their appliance holdings and planned consumption to installers, leading to undersized and overloaded systems that fail prematurely. Consequently, stakeholders deploy distinct strategies. Policymakers, by institutional authority, possess the legitimised voice in formal discourse. Local populations cultivate alternative channels to be heard. Community members often perceive local deputies as offering transactional “empty promises”, while viewing researchers as credible intermediaries who might amplify their voices to decision-makers. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it enriches the empirical knowledge on energy narratives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, it provides a theoretical analysis of the Congolese and Senegalese energy discourse through a lens of recognition justice, thereby highlighting specific instances of misrecognition and the ambivalent dynamics of power and legitimisation. Simultaneously, the paper interrogates the role, and inherent power, of research itself as an instrument for channelling marginalised voices within these contested governance arenas.