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After more than 15 years with E+Co, Christine Eibs Singer has decided to leave the organization in order to engage in energy access issues at the strategy level.

In 1994, Christine co-founded E+Co with Phil LaRocco to champion clean energy enterprise development around the world. Their vision and leadership enabled E+Co to pioneer the model of services and capital to entrepreneurs.

“We are very thankful to Christine for her efforts in building E+Co from the ground up into a non-profit leader in clean energy and entrepreneurship” stated Guy Kern-Martin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of E+Co. “Her enormous contribution to this sector is widely recognized and her boundless energy and unflagging optimism will be missed.”

Chris Aidun, Managing Director of E+Co, added “ Christine’s vision will be missed, but our commitment to E+Co’s mission remains deep. E+Co’s dedicated staff around the world will continue their pursuit of providing access to clean energy through the promotion and development of enterprises in emerging markets.”

E+Co has gathered solar entrepreneurs from Asia, Africa and Latin America for an 8-day intensive training workshop in Bangalore, India. E+Co Innovations staff will be live blogging about the workshops, field visits, and lessons learned daily.

Days 3-4 – Tuesday, December 6 – Wednesday, December 7

Our group of 10 arrived in Udupi on the West Coast at 7am, fresh off the overnight bus from Bangalore. After settling in and refreshing ourselves with breakfast (Neer Dosa has become a group favorite), we headed off to the local Selco branch office. Headed by Guru Prakash, our guide throughout the day, we learned about the location’s general operating structure, staff organization, sales models and sale to installation documentation process. People had many questions about the latter and it was suggested that service calls needed to be documented by the technicians so that the information isn’t lost if that technician is later unavailable .

We then headed out of town to visit a migrant workers village. This slum is inhabited by about 308 families, 38 of whom have Selco installations. The story of how this came to be was an important one for the entrepreneurs. It took Selco two years to convince both the slum inhabitants and the bank that would provide the financing to them that this was a viable and necessary project. Lacking grid power, villagers were interested in bringing in solar for consumptive (home lighting) and productive (income generating) purposes. Having minimal income to meet their most basic needs, however, it was difficult to a) justify the need for electrification and b) believe that it was possible to afford it. Banks had similar concerns: how was adding solar power going to help these people and how could they possibly be given a loan with few or no assets to serve as collateral?

Selco staff made multiple visits to this village, both on their own to help build their understanding of villagers’ needs and concerns, and with bank staff to help them see the same. After two years, the following model was developed, adopted and successfully executed with the first five homes:
Selco would make 100% deposits against the full value of the loan needed to complete the installation, assuming all of the risk if the villagers did not repay.
The bank (cooperative) secured the loan for each family
Villagers paid back the loan over a period of one year — the repayment rate was 100%
Selco reinvested the money to support solar installations in 33 more homes

Also important to note was that the solar loan opened a door for a number of these families to take out future loans for other purposes.

Our next stop was Manipal, a college town where we visited the Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank and a credit-run cooperative society. The local Bank Manager made it clear that his bank is committed to continuing its support of Selco and its customers, stating that they would like “solar to grow into each home [in the state].” When asked why, he said it was because both the bank and its customers believed Selco to be “the best” and thus a good bet for investment. Because facilitating financing for rural and poor customers is such a problem for any entrepreneurs, they pushed further and found out that in fact in India, there is a list of solar companies which have been vetted and shown to meet a set of standards by the government. Banks offer financing to these companies only. In talking to managers at both the bank and cooperative, it was clear that participants were trying hard to learn lessons from the Selco financing model and specifically, to come up with strategies for creating successful partnerships with banks in their own countries. But because each country’s situation is different and has its own set of regulations and both formal and informal barriers, they seem to still find it challenging to draw direct comparisons between the Indian context and their own. Regardless, several have noted getting ideas for how to better pursue banking relationships.

Entrepreneurs also had specific questions about loan terms for businesses & individuals, interest rates and repayment; an interesting fact was that individual loan takers frequently paid back their loans (offered for a one-year term) within only a few months.

There was a lot of interest in the Cooperative model: to be a member of the cooperative, individuals must buy a share of it for 100 rupees. Then they are eligible for loans, savings and deposits (earning interest). The cooperative is managed by a board of 9 and says its collaboration with Selco and the migrant workers has gone extremely well. Several entrepreneurs noted that they should reach out to cooperatives in their countries.

Finally, we went to visit a water heating installation at the Manipal Institute of Higher Education. It has an installed capacity of 300,000 liters. The cost per installed liter capacity is about $4 and the payback period of the system is about 2 years. This is the largest solar water heater installation in Asia.

We had a few nice diversions during the day as well. A quick stop at the beach yielded coconut water, soft sand and beautiful views. A local family hosted us for a traditional lunch of many courses, served on banana leaves. A full day that left us all tired but full of new insights and enthusiasm for what was to come!

Insights from Day 3 in Udupi (as written by entrepreneurs):
*Selco’s financial innovation is transforming poor societies – like the slum is worth emulating.
*Impressed by the banker’s openness to finance solar system for the poorest (slum).
*Also impressed by the huge solar heater in the MIT.
*I like India’s policy environment in rural financing – a good mix of private sector with government intervention.
*Selco outreach marketing – innovation on collateral – where Selco deposited 100% of the solar to offer a guarantee to the bank and finally the client (borrowers) repaid the loan, thus building confidence in the bank.
*Impressed with lifestyle in slums. If the bank and Selco did a good job creating opportunities on loan for solar then I feel we can do the same in our country.
*Slum life transformation – membership in a credit society and fast loan repayment — solar light!
*Seriousness of the financial bodies in solar.
*Obviously it is possible for entrepreneurs to propose SELCO’s approach by involving MFIs and other financial institutions in offering end-users finance to the rural poor in Africa.

E+Co has gathered solar entrepreneurs from Asia, Africa and Latin America for an 8-day intensive training workshop in Bangalore, India. E+Co Innovations staff will be live blogging about the workshops, field visits, and lessons learned daily.

Day 1 — Thursday, December 1
It’s a beautiful day in Bangalore and our happy group of entrepreneurs had a great first day. We come from 8 countries (Costa Rica, Ghana, India, Mali, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Togo, and USA) and include 11 entrepreneurs (including two who are just getting started), 6 E+Co staff (based in and out of the US) and a revolving cast of a dozen or so Selco staff and associates. Everyone is jet-lagged but brimming with enthusiasm.

Today focused on team building, introductions and setting the stage for the full India experience. E+Co’s Gina Rodolico, along with others, emphasized that Selco & E+Co aim to learn as much from the entrepreneurs as we hope they learn from us. Ashis Kumar Sahu of Selco kicked off talking about the importance of solar endeavors and Selco’s vision that in the not too distant future, each person in the room will have grown and reached prominence. Selco has never had an aim of being a well-known or leading organization — rather it hopes to be a leader, inspiring and promoting growth of other solar enterprises. He also emphasized – as did others throughout the day – that Selco hopes to be put ‘on the operating table’, inspected and criticized to help them grow as well.

Harish Hande, Managing Director and founder of Selco spoke next and walked us through Selco’s development, trials and tribulations and lessons learned. He provided background of the context of India, emphasizing that India can be viewed like 14 separate countries (states) and that because of variations in populations and needs, everyone should be able to relate what’s going on somewhere back to their country. He also shared several insights that might be viewed as antithetical to growing a business but were instrumental in Selco achieving its success. He stressed saying ‘no’ to investors whose vision for your company don’t fit with your own (reverse due diligence). He described the poor as partners (rather than just beneficiaries of charity). He also emphasized how Selco started out by identifying people’s needs and then creating ways to meet them. The entrepreneurs were very interested to learn from Harish and the Selco development experience.

We spent the afternoon in team building activities, sharing our business experiences with one another, looking at our own businesses in different ways, and working together to solve challenges. We left with a number of key insights, shared by all and compiled by E+Co and Selco staff:

-There are things we can control and things we cannot control
-The poor are partners + customers are shareholders
-Sustainable products do not equal sustainable development (focus on asset creation)
-Selco Started with a social mission, the enterprise was incidental
-Giving voice to the DRE sector essential
-80% of innovation is financial
-Focus on institutional sustainability and autonomy
-Create your own ecosystem
-Invest in relationships & people
-Reverse due diligence (don’t be afraid to turn down investors)
-Selco is an experiment, still
-Processes, not models
-The poor subsidize the rich
-Diversity & paradoxes within India
-India is unique with respect to rural banking infrastructure

By Amanda Warren, E+Co Business Development Associate

Kofi Nketsia-Tabiri joined E+Co as an Investment Officer managing portfolio companies in Ghana, Zambia, and Tanzania in 2003. Since then, he has served many roles on the E+Co staff, providing mentoring and guidance to African energy entrepreneurs both in the field and working from the E+Co Africa regional office in Centurion, South Africa as the Regional Director of E+Co Africa.

After several years managing portfolios and coaching entrepreneurs, Kofi saw a disagreeable pattern emerging. “My portfolio companies were not being aggressive enough about maximizing the opportunities E+Co gave them — what was I doing wrong?” Kofi asked himself. “I was telling entrepreneurs, you can do these steps and use these tools and succeed, but I hadn’t actually done it myself,” he said. Finally, in 2010, he decided it was time for a change — Kofi took his lessons learned from E+Co and applied them to starting his own energy business from scratch.

“I had confidence I could go into the field and be successful because I understood the challenges going in — I had the benefit of all the experiences of my portfolio companies, both the successes and the failures,” Kofi told me.

Kofi’s year-old energy enterprise, Xpress Gas Limited, now provides Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) to families in rural Ghana that would otherwise rely on charcoal and kerosene to light and fuel their homes — energy sources that release toxic fumes. LPG is a more energy and cost-efficient way to deliver clean and safe power to these households. “I saw that many people could afford the cleaner form of energy, but they didn’t have access to the infrastructure,” Kofi said. His company’s main focus is opening new distribution channels and supplying LPG to small businesses and households that can afford it. “I have helped to change the mindsets of the people in these countries to show them that it doesn’t have to be the government who brings the power lines – that is something that entrepreneurs can make happen themselves.”

Xpress Gas Limited has achieved many of its goals despite the fact that Kofi has yet to secure an external source of funding for his business. He has learned that resourcefulness and passion are prerequisites to overcoming these kinds of barriers as an entrepreneur.

Kofi was pleased to pay a visit to E+Co’s Bloomfield office this week to share his stories from life as an entrepreneur. “I owe everything I’ve learned to E+Co,” he said. “There is no other institution that has the unique capacity, depth, experience, and networks to come together to empower entrepreneurs to achieve their full potential in combating energy poverty. It’s remarkable.”

Now that he has been on both sides of the mentoring/entrepreneur partnership, I asked Kofi if he had any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. “Be creative enough to get the business going without capital, without any investor support,” Kofi said. “Find innovative ways to generate income. No one will take a bet on you unless you can make it happen for yourself.”

Dear E+Co Friends and Partners,

Over the last months, the Board and I have been taking stock of E+Co’s operations and the evolution of our business model so that E+Co can maximize its mission of increased energy access in the developing world through energy enterprise development. We are undertaking this at a time that is filled with opportunities resulting from the growing Impact Investing sector and the increasing recognition of the role energy plays in development, but also with challenges resulting from the global economic situation – all of which are stretching this organization at a time for potential growth.

In order to address these issues, I am pleased to announce that effective November 4, I will focus on our global business development as Managing Director of E+Co, and Christopher Aidun will assume the role of Managing Director focusing on E+Co’s portfolio, investing, finance and administrative operations. This structure will allow me to leverage my 17 years of experience in building E+Co and focus my efforts on the implementation of E+Co’s knowledge management and business innovations agenda, strategic partnerships, fund raising and advocacy, including my appointment on the UN Secretary General’s High Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All. Chris, who has worked with E+Co over the last five years as the Senior Partner at Weil Gotshal & Manges, LLP, E+Co’s pro bono counsel, and has more than 30 years of experience in private equity and venture capital, will focus on the management and growth of E+Co’s portfolio of 135 clean energy enterprises, new investment opportunities and investment products for energy enterprise development in Asia, Africa and Latin America. By working together and with the E+Co Board, Chris and I will maximize our respective areas of expertise to the benefit of E+Co’s mission.

In connection with these changes, I am also pleased to inform you that Lucy Berkowitz will be joining E+Co as Finance Director and Dirk Muench has been appointed as Investment Director. Lucy is a Chartered Accountant with more than 20 years of experience at Price Waterhouse and at a FT30 company. She is currently the Chief Financial Officer of the Near East Foundation, a US non-profit that empowers entrepreneurs and communities in the Middle East and Africa. Dirk Muench joined E+Co in 2010, after nine years at JP Morgan in investment banking and finance, and served as Regional Manager of E+Co Asia. Lucy and Dirk bring deep expertise to E+Co and they will help us to build and strengthen our organizational capabilities in key areas. Lucy and Dirk join Paul van Aalst, E+Co Europe Director and Gina Rodolico, Innovations Director on the E+Co Senior Management Team.

Jacki Robinson has concluded her engagement with E+Co. On behalf of the Board, and personally, I extend sincere thanks to Jacki for her contributions and commitment to E+Co during her 6+ years of service as E+Co’s CFO.

E+Co’s history showcases the demonstrated ability to pioneer innovative solutions to clean energy enterprise development. I believe this re-organization will allow E+Co to accelerate innovations that build greater scale while maintaining our position as a leading investor in developing country energy enterprises. The E+Co Board and Management look forward to the development and implementation of our growth plan, engaging current as well as new partners, so that we can significantly alter the trajectory of energy access in the developing world.

Best Regards,
Christine
Co-Founder and Managing Director

by Walter Vargas, E+Co Asset Manager

On Monday, October 10, I traveled to Guatemala with E+Co’s Regional Manager for Latin America, Wilhelm Baumgartner, to visit Los Cerros, a 1.1 MW grid connected Hydroelectric Plant.

In 2007, E+Co provided Los Cerros with the senior debt needed to begin the project´s construction. Along the way, the project encountered numerous unforeseen obstacles, such as technical problems with the electromechanical equipment, and heavy rains that resulted in construction delays and increased project costs. E+Co worked with Los Cerrsos in restructuring the project’s finances, increasing our loan amount and allowing them to complete construction, commission the plant and begin electricity production in a country where almost 30% of the energy is produced by thermal plants.

Mr. Freddy Alvarado, one of the sponsors of the project, accompanied us on the site visit. When we arrived in Guatemala to torrential rains, we were worried about the effect the weather would have on our trip. Central America had been suffering heavy weather conditions for the past few days and many of Guatemala’s principal roads had been shut down. We were worried that after arriving in Guatemala, we wouldn’t make it to see the plant after all.

As it turned out, the poor weather was a blessing in disguise for us. The sponsors informed us that they had decided to make the 275 Km trip from the capital to the project by helicopter instead. Wilhelm and I were excited by this change in plans — for both of us, it would be our first experience flying in a helicopter.
The ride was excellent, affording both of us a new ‘perspective’ on the project, both literally and figuratively as we looked down on the Los Cerros plant from the sky. The plant is located in San Marcos, a town in the northeastern region of Guatemala. In addition to providing power to the national grid, it provides electricity to a nearby a coffee plantation by harnessing the energy created by the natural flow of the Los Cerros river. Flying over the plant, we saw an amazing panoramic view of the community, the powerful river, and the lush coffee plants that dotted the landscape. We gained a new appreciation for all the hard work and careful planning that went into the construction of the plant.

We arrived at the community nearby the project at 8:30 AM, and local people greeted us with warm smiles. We had a delicious traditional breakfast of tortillas, sour cream and coffee served by the ladies that cook for Los Cerros’s workers. After we had filled our stomachs and paid our respects, we took off, utilizing an old 4X4 car to begin our journey towards the Los Cerros plant.

Finally, we arrived at the powerhouse. We were proud when we saw the hydro plant up and running at 97% of its capacity (another benefit of the heavy rains the past weeks). This run of the river hydro plant provides almost 2,000 households with access to modern energy services, and displacing about 5,000 tons of carbon every year. We could see the impacts of our efforts in working to support the project sponsors and the furtherance of E+Co’s mission of increasing energy access.

At 11 AM, we received a call — we had to rush back to the helicopter, since it had started raining at the top of the mountains. We had another exciting flight back to Guatemala City. What a satisfying and rewarding trip, showing E+Co’s investments of services and capital at work.

The World’s Most Unreasonable Trailer from Unreasonable Institute on Vimeo.

Guest post by Teju Ravilochan

Teju Ravilochan is co-founder of the Unreasonable Institute, an acceleration program for entrepreneurs tackling social and environmental problems. Each year, it unites 25 world-class entrepreneurs from across the globe in Boulder for 6 weeks. They live under the same roof, work with 50 mentors, pitch to 100 investors, and build relationships with portfolio managers from 20 investment funds, called “Capital Partners.” E + Co is proud to be an Unreasonable Institute Capital Partner and this post explains why we sent E + Co COO Gina Rodolico to live at the Unreasonable Institute for 3 days this past summer.

Picture this: 22 entrepreneurs from 15 countries, who’d journeyed to the United States to attend the summer-long Unreasonable Institute, packed into a bus traveling 3,000 miles round-trip from Boulder to San Francisco. They’d each practiced their pitches 50 times, they knew their stuff cold. And they each had 6 minutes to present to 80 of the impact investment space’s top funders. The stakes were high, but they were ready. They got on stage and earned a standing ovation.

The only problem? Nobody got any money.

But why?

The answer came when we got back to Unreasonable headquarters in Boulder. All of us, staff and these 22 entrepreneurs, lived together in one big house, where we shared rooms, meals, and our lives for 10 weeks. Remarkably, the 60 mentors who joined us, including the former Managing Director of Investments at Google.org, the founder of a $200 million investment fund, and a Silicon Valley VC who’s exited companies for more than $700 million, lived in this house as well for between 3 days and 2 weeks. They brushed their teeth next to these entrepreneurs, went for hikes with them, shared midnight conversations with them. And 7 of our entrepreneurs received funding from them!

When we dug deeper, we came to a simple realization: capital flows through relationships, not pitches.

So for the second Institute we ran this past summer, we took this lesson to heart. We reached out to over 20 impact investment funds and invited them to be our Capital Partners. These funds have included Acumen Fund, RSF Social Finance, First Light Ventures, and of course, E+Co, who sent COO Gina Rodolico to live with us in Boulder for 3 days.

With this partnership, E+Co gets to know thrice-vetted entrepreneurs (a number of which are focused on energy solutions for off-the-grid customers in the developing world), trained by world-class mentors, and backed by a global network of over 140 partners, as potential investments. There’s no pressure on E+Co to invest in any of these entrepreneurs, but E+Co does have the chance to build relationships that enable it to monitor the progress of these entrepreneurs over time, assessing how well they deliver on the milestones they’ve committed too.

Our entrepreneurs learn from an amazing fund like E+Co what makes an investable energy company to them, and can grow their companies accordingly. They also have a relationship with Gina which gives them a foot-in-the-door when they’re ready to discuss investment. And of course, if both E+Co and one of our entrepreneurs are the right fit, investment is much more likely to happen than if our entrepreneurs were pitching to a roomful of investors.

For this reason, we’re incredibly excited that E+Co has agreed to be a Capital Partner for the 2012 Unreasonable Institute! By building relationships with potential investees in this way, instead of attending pitch fests, E+Co and the other 20 Capital Partners converging at the Unreasonable Institute, are creating a powerful foundation for future deal-flow, based on human connection, and much more likely to be a match.

Note to Entrepreneurs: Applications are open for the 2012 Unreasonable Institute right now! If you’re an entrepreneur dedicated to tackling the world’s greatest social or environmental problems (or know someone who is), head to http://unreasonableinstitute.org/ and apply by November 10!

Impact Investing in Energy Enterprises: A Three Act Play is an article that was published in the MIT Innovations Journal this September. In it, Christine discusses the development of E+Co’s financial strategy and the role that impact investing will play in the future of energy access. Now that the United Nations has declared 2012 to be the year of Sustainable Energy for All, engaging the private sector in enabling energy access is more important than ever. Join us on Wednesday, November 9, at 10 am EST, to discuss the different ways that we can work to accomplish these goals.

How it works:
All you need is a Twitter account! Follow our account, @EandCoEnergy, and the hashtag #SustainedImpact and use it in all of your posts to join the conversation — Tweet at us with questions, comments, or other things you’d like discussed anytime from now until November 9. Then tune in to Twitter on November 9 at 10 am, when Christine will respond to your questions and listen to your feedback.

Spread the word! Start Tweeting about the event now — don’t forget to use the #SustainedImpact hashtag.

By Christine Eibs Singer, CEO and Co-Founder of E+Co

This week, the Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog published an article by Simon Trace, the CEO of UK-based charity Practical Action, titled “Power can challenge poverty – and that makes universal energy access a must.” The article celebrates the current focus on achieving universal, sustainable access to energy in the world’s poorest regions, while pointing out that it is long overdue and an absolute necessity in lifting people and communities out of poverty.

Mr. Trace trumpets locally-focused, small-scale initiatives as being the vehicles for change. “We need a new narrative, one that argues for direct investment in energy services for the poor as a way of stimulating development,” he writes.

E+Co has pursued a strategy of direct investment in small and medium energy enterprises for 17 years. We have supported over 200 entrepreneurs with services and capital, who in turn have provided 8 million people worldwide with access to modern energy services. After being invited to participate in UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s High Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All last month, I am heartened to see these issues moving to the forefront of the global political agenda—the United Nations has declared 2012 to be the Year of Sustainable Energy for All, and civil society and the private sector are rallying behind the movement. We now need to channel these good sentiments into large-scale, cooperative action that recognizes and challenges the current barriers to enabling energy access.

I attended a meeting on “Energy for All, Financing Access for the Poor,” in Oslo, Norway last week, at which some of these issues were addressed. Speakers and participants repeatedly expressed that there are an insufficient number of sustainable and scalable enterprises that can translate financing into the provision of energy goods and services to the poor. The discourse identified two major barriers: the limited pipeline of investment-ready enterprises and the relative absence of seed capital to catalyze enterprises for energy service delivery. E+Co’s experience highlights avenues through which these barriers can be tackled.

To address the pipeline issue, E+Co is partnering with leaders in technology, business and innovation to develop an online learning platform to replicate our enterprise development services model on a much larger scale, allowing us to support more entrepreneurs and power more communities. The platform will integrate the knowledge and lessons learned from our hundreds of investments to date to create dozens of country and technology-specific training programs readily accessible to entrepreneurs all over the world. These entrepreneurs will engage with a global network of mentors, suppliers and investors to create investment-ready business plans. Their businesses will bring modern energy to the doorsteps of the energy poor in a way that is economically and environmentally sustainable.

This article is reprinted from The Guardian’s Poverty Matters Blog. Read the original post here.

by Simon Trace, CEO of International Development Charity Practical Action

Earlier this week, decision makers came together in Oslo to launch Energy+, the international energy and climate initiative. It promises to be a landmark contribution towards securing sustainable energy for all by 2030.

The need for such progress is clear, given that half the world’s population live without modern energy, the majority of people cook on an open fire, and two out of three families in sub-Saharan Africa are without electricity.

Access to modern energy sources transforms lives and is critical to development and moving people out of poverty. But we are making very slow progress in this area. In fact, projections show that just as many women, men and children will be living in energy poverty two decades from now. That’s not development, it’s injustice. So the Energy+ initiative is welcome, acknowledging as it does that neither current levels of financing nor existing programmes are sufficient to address the scale of current challenges.

A long overdue global consensus is emerging, led by the UN and its secretary general Ban Ki-moon, which recognises the importance of sustainable energy access for the wellbeing of the world’s people, the future of the global economy and the preservation of our planet.

As energy moves up the political agenda, however, it’s important that the needs of communities living without energy access are not forgotten. High-level declarations must be translated into delivery, in ways that make a meaningful and positive difference across the developing world.

Right now, we need to increase funding for energy access. But it’s not just an issue of the amount of money available – where that money is spent is equally important. The current donor and government focus is on large-scale, centralised energy schemes: the big power stations and dams. But decision makers need to recognise the value of financing not only major grid initiatives but also, crucially, small-scale work. Locally led schemes – from solar to micro-hydro, fuel-efficient stoves to biogas – will truly ensure that people have the power to challenge their poverty.

We need a new narrative, one that argues for direct investment in energy services for the poor as a way of stimulating development. Such a narrative will help us get away from the traditional notion of energy investment for macro-level economic growth, which relies on the trickle-down effect to tackle poverty.

Delivering energy access will fuel business, economic growth and prospects across the developing and developed world. The challenge of achieving energy for all must be seen as an opportunity, opening up the chance to innovate in terms of systems, finance, capacity and technology.

Governments north and south – and other key players, such as development banks – should formally support the UN goal of universal energy access by 2030.

Why? Because energy for all is achievable. Just 3% of the predicted global investment in the energy sector over the next two decades would secure energy access for all.

With this in mind, Practical Action has launched the Civil society call: energy for all 2030 initiative, endorsed by more than 70 NGOs across Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative is dedicated to ending energy poverty and achieving universal energy access by 2030.