Sam Lakha, Manager, Volans Outreach.
New Partnership to Scale Energy Access in Asia
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has launched an Energy for All Partnership that aims to provide access to modern (renewable) energy to an additional 100 million people in the Asia-Pacific region by 2015.
While the technology exists, the Pathways to Scale work we’ve been conducting with solar entrepreneurs shows that two of the biggest barriers to scaling up access to renewable energy in rural areas are the lack of finance and of distribution networks. The Energy for All Partnership will support an initial phase of six working groups – on domestic biogas, solar lanterns, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), financing for energy services, energy enterprise development, and the Pacific region – that will design and implement programs in high-impact areas such as increasing microfinance lending for energy investments, or replicating business models for private sector service delivery.
This investment portfolio looks promising. Christine Eibs-Singer, CEO of E+Co and co-chair of partnership’s steering committee, emphasized the need for increasing collaboration between existing efforts in order to yield a greater impact. “Many organizations, from the multilateral to the local, are helping bring energy access to vulnerable communities,” she said, and framed the work of this donor-led partnership as leveraging the work of partner organizations for greater impact and wider benefits.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/06/new-partnership-to-scale-energy-access-in-asia/.
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