When a Big Energy Project Turns Bad

BISHKEK—For a major infrastructure project to succeed, it must be underpinned by sustained political support and sound economics. When political and strategic considerations are allowed to dominate decision-making, and long-term economic assessments suffer as a result, projects can fail before they start. This appears to have been the case with the Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade Project (CASA-1000).Funded jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, and others, CASA-1000 was introduced in 2006 as a

means