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This paper aims to examine the relevance of boards in driving firm level performance. For this purpose, it considers firms listed on Ireland and Spain stock exchanges for the period 2005 to 2014, over a period that includes the global financial crisis.

This study uses panel data regression analysis to analyse the effects of board characteristics on performance and also uses alternate model specifications to test the significance of robustness of relationships.

The impact of board size on performance is negative and significant for Irish and Spanish firms for the study period. In general, the board independence has a positive effect on the performance of Spanish firms for the complete study period and suggests consistency with the resource dependency theory.

The analysis suggests that in general, the non-executive and the board size do not affect the corporate performance of Irish and Spanish firms during the financial crisis. The fixed effects model suggests positive effects of gender diversity on performance for Spanish firms, while the random effects indicates negative relationship between gender diversity and performance for Irish companies.

The evidence on the Spanish firms suggests that female representation on the boards may be critical during the financial crisis

The quota legislation on female board representation in Spain is yielding superior results over the soft law approach by Irish firms during the times of financial crisis period.

This study contributes to the literature on the corporate governance practices and performance of two countries that were strongly affected by the crisis in the European Union. As governments increasingly contemplate board gender diversity policies, this study offers useful empirical insights on Spanish and Irish firms.

This study aims to provide empirical evidence on two research questions: firstly, whether green finance is positively related to electricity access, and, secondly, if the domestic economic environment moderates the relationship between green finance and electricity access? This paper pays particular attention to the regional disparities in Africa.

While pursuing the study objectives, the authors apply a variety of statistical approaches and tools to assess the robustness of the findings. The authors use panel dataset for analysing data. In order to empirically examine the relationship between green finance and electricity access in the African region, the paper employs static and dynamic panel estimation methods, Poisson method and adopts two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) approach for dealing with issues relating to endogeneity. The authors also use alternate proxy for the electricity access, which is drawn from the regulatory indicators for sustainable energy (RISE) scores.

The authors find that despite the fact that green funding appears to support job creation, household incomes aren't high enough to drive rising demand for electricity. The study underscores the role and responsibilities of external funding agencies to ensure that funds at the receiving end are effectively routed to encourage access to clean and sustainable energy, which is good to the economic and domestic environment. Further, due to the relatively modest size of some funds, the cost to administer those funds is larger than the funds themselves. This causes inefficiencies, which may temporarily provide jobs but not lasting growth. This means there is no regular need for energy, therefore larger investors have no reason to enter the market. This discourages investors from public-private partnerships or private investments and prevents future investment.

The provide insights into the private-public partnerships and whether the challenges to electricity access are being turned into investment opportunities. The effects of the power Africa project initiatives are revealing, with, sanitation being an impediment to the development of electricity infrastructure, specifically in low-income group countries.

The study confirms the view that trivial amounts of green financing (US-Aid or grants) impose a burden on the absorptive capacity of the recipient government and increases the transaction costs and is likely to be an impediment (Kimura et al., 2012) to initiating projects that enhance electricity access.

The results indicate that although green financing seems to be supporting employment opportunities, income levels are insufficient to create demand for electricity usage. It, therefore, becomes imperative that sanitation (SDG 6) is fully addressed in order to ensure that SDG 7 is attained.

The authors provide insights around the private public partnerships and whether the challenges to electricity access are being turned into investment opportunities. The effects of the power Africa project initiatives are revealing, with, sanitation being an impediment to the development of electricity infrastructure, specifically in low-income group countries.