ESMAP Annual Report 2021
During this period, ESMAP focused its efforts on addressing three compounded challenges facing developing countries: the COVID crisis; the urgent need to decarbonize; and achieving universal access to electricity.
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HIGHLIGHTS
ESMAP IMPACT
COVID-19
CLIMATE CHANGE
UN HLDE
GENDER
PARTNERSHIPS
Un High-Level Dialogue on Energy
The High-level Dialogue on Energy, held in September 2021, was the first global gathering on energy under the auspices of the General Assembly since the UN Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy, held in Nairobi in 1981. The overarching goals of the dialogue were to promote the implementation of the energy-related goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to accelerate action toward the achievement of the SDG 7 targets by catalyzing innovative solutions, investments, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. World Bank/ESMAP co-led the Working Group on Energy Access, one of five groups that informed the deliberations of the High-Level Dialogue on Energy, and took an active role in drafting the accompanying report on Energy Access: Towards the Achievement of SDG 7 and Net-Zero Emissions. The report included recommendations on how to accomplish universal access to electricity and clean cooking by 2030 and listed intermediate targets by 2025.
Photo © Jean-Marc Ferre / UN Photo
The power of Partnerships
Integral to ESMAP’s business model is to actively collaborate with multilateral and bilateral organizations, initiatives and programs, as well as partnering with nongovernmental organizations, think-tanks, research institutions and industry groups to influence the global energy agenda. Over the years, ESMAP has built a strong network of partnerships across sectors. In FY2021, ESMAP created new partnerships and enhanced existing ones. Below are some examples of these collaborations:
GLOBAL WIND ENERGY COUNCIL AND IFC
ESMAP established its Offshore Wind Development Program in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to strategically support both the government and industry in emerging markets. This joined up approach enables the World Bank Group to provide a comprehensive package of support to our clients. The Program also works in close cooperation with the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). GWEC provide strong links with the international offshore wind industry and offer market insights in our client countries. For example, in September 2020, the Program collaborated with GWEC to produce an offshore wind virtual study tour which saw over 400 delegates, including representatives from 24 client governments, attend the three-day event.
In 2019, the WHO with the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the support of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and other key stakeholders established the Health and Energy Platform of Action (HEPA). This platform aims to strength cooperation between health and energy sectors, with an initial focus on clean cooking and health care facility electrification. In FY2021, as part of the HEPA, ESMAP collaborated with WHO and the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) in a series of webinars on Transitioning to Clean Cooking aimed at energy and health decisionmakers.
Health and Energy Platform for Action (HEPA)
ESMAP’s Leave No One Behind (LNBH) program collaborate with the data and energy teams from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHRC). This collaboration not only allows for a better understanding of the energy situation around the refugee camps, but it also sheds a light on the energy requirements in the surrounding areas.
UNHCR
ESMAP’s Efficient and Clean Cooling program (ECCP) was established in 2019 thanks to an initial $3 million grant to ESMAP from the philanthropic Clean Cooling Collaborative (CCC) - formerly known as the Kigali Cooling Efficiency program or K-CEP. ECCP has also benefitted from the K-CEP cooling network. ECCP has since become an integral part of the FY2021-24 ESMAP Business Plan’s Accelerating Decarbonization pillar. In FY2021, CCC recognized ESMAP with the ‘High Impact’ award at their K-CEP Phase 1 Impact Event.
Clean Cooling Collaborative (CCC)
As a part of the World Bank’s COVID 19 Vaccine Delivery taskforce, ESMAP participates in regular interagency meetings with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) to share recent updates, good practices, as well as experiences with common challenges regarding supply and logistics - especially cold chains - relevant to the COVID 19 vaccine roll-out. ESMAP collaborates closely with the three organizations at global and country level on data sharing, tools, models to assess cold chain gaps and costs, information on the cold chain landscape in low- and middle-income countries along with knowledge dissemination of latest cold chain equipment and technologies, solarization of cold chain, and identification of co-investment opportunities.
WHO, UNICEF and Gavi
The World Bank and TESLA started a collaboration in November 2020 through which Tesla is sharing knowledge and analysis with the World Bank on the cost implications and least cost of energy of different levels of economies of scale, technology optimization (solar, battery, energy management system), and logistics in mini-grid portfolios. TESLA representatives are also presenting innovative solutions to electrify public institutions (schools, health centers) in World Bank webinars and workshops.
TESLA
ESMAP’s Improving Livelihoods and Human Capital (ILHC) program has built a number of external partnerships to share knowledge on productive uses of energy. This includes cooperation with the UNIDO Vienna Energy Forum Virtual Series on Food Systems, the Efficiency for Access (EforA) Coalition led by the Collaborative Labelling and Appliance Standards Program (CLASP), and EnDev Learning & Innovation Productive Use of Energy Community of Practice.
Vienna Energy Forum, Efficiency for Access, EnDev
ESMAP and the World Bank’s Energy Climate Finance team have worked closely with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) over the past 18 months to develop a multi-country facility dedicated to sustainable cooling. In October 2021, the GCF Board approved the World Bank’s Cooling Facility, through which 157 USD million GCF funds will be channeled to nine World Bank projects. It is one of the world’s first multi-country financing initiatives to focus on cooling and will help nine identified countries develop the necessary market infrastructure, financing mechanisms, and policies and regulations to deploy clean cooling at scale. It will focus on space cooling (i.e., energy efficient buildings and appliances), as well as refrigeration and cold chains in the health and agriculture sectors.
Green Climate Fund (GCF)
ESMAP is working with UNICEF on electrification of public institutions. The objective of this partnership is to collaborate on market assessments and data sharing for electrification of schools and health centers in low-income client countries. These assessments can subsequently inform investments in electrifying public institutions. Collaboration is underway in Niger and Sudan.
UNICEF
Through a partnership with the African Clean Energy (ACE) program of the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA), ESMAP created in FY2021 the first end-user subsidy lab for off-grid solar products. The lab seeks to enable stakeholders to design smart and effective end-user subsidies that will lower the cost of off-grid solar products without creating market distortions.
Africa Clean Energy
The World Bank Group convened the Energy Storage Partnership (ESP) in May 2019 to foster international technological cooperation and training that can develop and adapt new energy storage solutions tailored for the needs and conditions of developing countries. The ESP currently has 41 Partners and has built consensus around an agenda for expanding the knowledge base and capacity for developing countries to manage energy storage projects. In the past year, the ESP created online training sessions on energy storage, the production of three reports, and the implementation of testbeds.
Energy Storage Partnership
ESMAP is a member of the Cool Coalition’s Steering Committee and engages in Cool Coalition activities and events raising awareness about and promoting a global transition to efficient and climate-friendly cooling. ESMAP supports the Cool Coalition in promoting a “reduce-shift-improve-protect” holistic and cross-sectoral approach to meet growing demands for cooling.
Cool Coalition
Along with the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization, the World Bank/ESMAP is a custodian agency in tracking the SDG 7 targets. Every year, the custodian agencies publish Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report. The report provides the most comprehensive look available at the world’s progress towards global energy targets on access to electricity, clean cooking, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. The 2021 edition informed the United Nations High Level Dialogue on Energy.
TRACKING SDG7
The World Bank/ESMAP is a member of the Green Powered Future Mission Coalition led by Italy, China, and the United Kingdom. The coalition aims to demonstrate that power systems, regardless of geography or climates, can effectively integrate up to 100% VRE in their generation mix by 2030 while ensuring the system is cost-efficient, secure, and resilient. This year the mission developed a Joint Roadmap of Global Innovation Priorities which was released during a dedicated event organized at the UNFCCC Innovation Hub Pavilion at COP26 in November. The next step will be setting out the Mission’s Action Plan 2022-2024.
GREEN POWERED FUTURE MISSION COALITION
The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) Program, led by Loughborough University and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), aims to create a stronger evidence base for transitioning to modern energy cooking services through socioeconomic and technological innovations to drive the process forward.
MODERN ENERGY COOKING SERVICES (MECS) PROGRAM
The High-Level Coalition on Health and Energy, convened by the WHO, aims to strengthen cooperation between health and energy sectors, increase political momentum, spur investments, mobilize public support and drive practical solutions. ESMAP, representing the World Bank, supports and collaborates with the Coalition. It was launched in June 2021 and has issued a strategic roadmap on health and energy.
High-Level Coalition on Health and Energy
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Number of Activities by Region, FY2021
ESMAP Impact FY2021
Fiscal year 2021 was the first year of implementation of ESMAP’s four-year business plan for FY2021-24, which focuses on four thematic programs—Electricity Access, Clean Cooking Fund, Renewable Energy, and Accelerating Decarbonization—hinged upon cross-cutting areas of Foundations for the Energy Transition and Energy Data and Analytics. With an active portfolio of $176.3 million, as of the end of June 2021, encompassing more than 267 activities across more than 75 countries, ESMAP is helping to shape global energy policies while underpinning significant World Bank development financing. Concrete program results are illustrated throughout the report.
$10.4 Billion
$3.6 Billion
$5.0 Billion
in World Bank development financing informed
external financing mobilized, including private sector
climate finance informed
3 GW
39.8 MILLION MT of CO
1 MILLION MWh
of renewable energy expected to be installed
emissions expected to be reduced
projected lifetime energy and fuel savings to be achieved
2
18 MILLION
5.2 MILLION
58.2 MILLION
people expected to gain access to electricity, of which 15.3 MILLION people will gain access to renewable energy
people have gained access to electricity
beneficiaries expected to be reached by ESMAP-informed World Bank development financing
Liberia
Electrification of Health Facilities
Sudan
Eliminating Fuel Subsidies
In Sudan, the Energy Sector Recovery Technical Assistance program, a $2 million multi-donor program, was established in 2019 to support the government with energy subsidy reform, clean energy transition, and increasing access to energy. An ESMAP-funded policy paper prepared as a part of the program identified energy subsidies as a major driver of the local economic crisis and showed that savings from successful reforms can deliver positive impacts for the public and improve the fiscal sustainability of Sudan. Since October 2020, the government of Sudan carried out several reforms to eliminate subsidies for gasoline and diesel products, which effectively ended all subsidies for these products by June 2021. These favorable reforms have also contributed to Sudan’s clearing its arrears to the International Development Association (IDA), enabling its full reengagement with the World Bank Group after nearly three decades and paving the way for the country to access nearly $2 billion in IDA grants for poverty reduction and sustainable economic recovery.
An estimated 95 percent of healthcare facilities in Liberia either have no electricity or they rely on costly diesel generators. For the few that are connected to the grid, the service is intermittent and of poor quality. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it exacerbated the urgent need to bring electricity to these facilities. In March 2021, the World Bank’s Liberia Electricity Sector Strengthening and Access Project received additional support from a $2.5 million ESMAP grant and a $2.7 million grant from Japan. The additional funding was provided for the electrification of healthcare and vaccine cold storage facilities through standalone solar systems. With ESMAP technical assistance to its design and implementation, the project focuses on urgent provision of solar PV services to (1) selected health facilities to enhance the delivery of healthcare services and improve their resilience during epidemics; and (2) identified vaccine storage facilities to support the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain.
Mongolia
New Energy-Efficient Vaccine Storage
Rwanda
CCF’s Energy Access and Quality Improvement Project
Bangladesh
Livestock and Dairy Cold Chain
Haiti
Improving Livelihoods and Human Capital During the Pandemic
Indonesia
Transitioning from Coal to Renewable Energy
Morocco
Energy storage testbed: Accelerating frontier energy storage systems to market
Vietnam
Offshore Wind Roadmap
Tajikistan
Floating Solar on Hydropower Plants
In Mongolia, ESMAP provided in-kind support for the design of a new energy-efficient central vaccine storage facility, which was financed by the World Bank, working with UNICEF as the implementing agency. The vaccine facility, constructed in just over three months and inaugurated in August 2021, is equipped with over 10,000 pieces of energy-efficient, advanced equipment. This includes cold rooms ranging from 20-40 m², voltage stabilizers for cold and freezer rooms, and different capacity refrigerators and freezers complete with full sets of parts and supplies. The new Mongolia central vaccine storage facility was inaugurated by the Prime Minister and constitutes a good example of World Bank-ESMAP-UNICEF collaboration, working effectively and efficiently together in support of the country’s COVID-19 response, and making a real difference for the health and wellbeing of the Mongolian people during the COVID-19 crisis.
Meat and dairy that spoil or arrive at market in a condition consumers reject are a missed opportunity for Bangladesh to reduce its food insecurity and increase the profits of its small farmers. Multiple barriers to cold chain development persist in Bangladesh, including limited access to energy in rural areas; poor and congested transport infrastructure; and lack of incentive for private sector investment. ESMAP’s Clean Cooling program contributed a $350,000 grant to the World Bank’s lending operation Clean and Energy Efficient Cooling for Livestock Supply Chains in Bangladesh to undertake technical and analytical work related to cold chain technology and logistics. The expected outputs are a comprehensive diagnostic of the needs for refrigeration in the livestock value chain and the identification of climate-friendly solutions and business models.
The government of Rwanda has set targets for shifting households from traditional to modern energy cooking solutions by 2024 that are also part of its climate commitments under Rwanda’s Nationally Determined Contributions. With ESMAP’s technical and grant support, the World Bank is working with the government of Rwanda to achieve its targets on access to clean cooking. The Rwanda Energy Access and Quality Improvement project, approved in July 2020, is the first CCF co-financed project, with a $10 million CCF grant and $10 million in IDA financing. It is the largest World Bank clean cooking operation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project aims to provide 2.15 million people (500,000 households) with clean cooking solutions through an RBF facility managed by the Rwanda Development Bank and technical assistance activities to improve the enabling environment managed by the Energy Development Corporation Limited. The RBF facility has a pro-poor design with RBF subsidy levels linked to household socioeconomic categories and clean cooking performance tiers. The CCF team is working in coordination with other groups in the World Bank, including on behavioral science, climate change, and social protection, as well as with development partners such as GIZ’s Energising Development (EnDev) program and the European Commission.
In FY2021, the COVID-19 pandemic called for rapid action to deploy vaccines, restore livelihoods, and strengthen public institutions and the resilience of communities. In Haiti, the ILHC initiative provided solar photovoltaic and battery storage installations for five large hospitals, solar PV-powered water pumps in five piped water systems prioritized for the COVID-19 response, and solar hybrid systems for health and/or water facilities in rural towns. The project, Haiti Renewable Energy for All, benefited from $2.9 million in additional financing from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through ESMAP and $2 million from the Haiti COVID-19 Response Project cross-sector investment in addition to the initial Small Renewable Energy Program (SREP) funding. The intervention strengthened the government’s response to the COVID-19 health crisis by enabling healthcare facilities to power life-saving equipment such as oxygen concentrators and to improve hygienic conditions in communities by enabling water pumping.
ESMAP provided support to Indonesia in its efforts to transition from coal to solar energy. This included assistance with the development of least-cost generation plans, a variable renewable energy (VRE) integration analysis, and a reliability analysis. Through this activity, the ESMAP team aided the creation of a new electricity generation plan and was able to demonstrate that switching from the current plan of building 450 MW of new coal projects to building solar plants producing up to 1 GW instead could save the Indonesian government up to $300 million by 2030. The activity also led to a proposed $500 million investment financing by SRMI, the Canada Facility, and the CTF. The resulting project, which will fund the identified grid upgrades for VRE integration, as well as grid resilience and reliability, and a transaction advisor to support the selection of private investors, is scheduled to go to the Board in FY2022.
Energy Storage Testbed: Accelerating Frontier Energy Storage Systems to Market
The ESP is developing a global “Network of Energy Storage Testbeds” (NESTs) Initiative. Energy Storage Testbeds are proposed in India, Morocco, and South Africa to serve regional needs to address the significant and unique barriers facing developing nations in accessing the benefits of energy storage systems (ESS). A “Testbed” is a facility which enables countries to assess energy storage performance under realistic local grid conditions at low cost and at manageable scale.
Morocco’s energy storage testbed is hosted and developed by the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN) at its Research and Development testing facility in the Noor Ouarzazate Complex. ESMAP supported by BEIS is preparing a $5 million grant for the Morocco testbed, which is most developed amongst the Global NESTs Initiative. ESMAP’s support will increase the testbed’s capabilities for testing an expanded range of technologies, strengthen its capacity building approaches and business model for sustained operations, and help implement a testing regime of performance and safety related codes and standards.
The program led pioneering activities in Vietnam, a country facing rapidly increasing demand, where the power system is expected to double in size by 2030 and near-term energy supply shortfalls could occur. Its footprint of fossil fuels could increase, in fact, as coal accounts for 34 percent of power generation, which could rise by 55 percent unless course correction is carried out in the coming year. The Offshore Wind Development program delivered to Vietnam a strategic offshore wind roadmap (the program’s first in a series of roadmaps for emerging markets), which explored the role of offshore wind in helping to sustainably meet the country’s future energy demands. The roadmap presented the opportunities and challenges that come with developing an offshore wind sector in Vietnam and highlighted the economic benefits that could be created. This information has helped the government make informed, strategic decisions on offshore wind; Vietnam’s new power development plan sets the target 8.5 GW of offshore wind to be operational by 2035.
In Tajikistan, ESMAP is supporting a preliminary techno-economic assessment of the possibility to install floating solar plants on Nurek and Baipaza hydropower plants and Qairokkum reservoirs. The assessment, currently under way, focuses on issues related to construction, anchoring, mooring, and interconnection with the grid network. A high-level environmental and social screening and studies of financing options will be performed once the technical assessment is completed.
The latest Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has emphasized that the risks of inaction—resulting from continued unabated coal-fired generation and use—are untenable and existential. The World Bank Climate Change Action Plan (2021–25) emphasizes the need to support countries planning a transition away from coal, helping them develop clear roadmaps for a just energy transition that focus on governance structures, the welfare of people and communities, and the remediation and repurposing of former mining lands and coal-fired power plants. In addition to the power sector, coal use in other areas such as industries, transport, and home heating, which are hard to abate, also need special attention. Significant upstream support of identifying clean energy options, including electrification options, is critical. ESMAP support to countries is already fully aligned with these objectives, but there will be an increasing need for support in this area in the coming years. Countries look on one hand to a clean energy future maximizing the socioeconomic benefits of green energy supply chains, but on the other hand also need to contend with technical challenges as well as the socioeconomic realities of reducing coal dependency. A significant challenge to a transition away from coal—both for mines and power plants—pertains to its workforce and the associated communities who are dependent on coal for their livelihoods. ESMAP is already supporting technical, governance, and socioeconomic aspects of the coal transition efforts in India, South Africa, and the Western Balkans. Industrial decarbonization efforts are also being supported in India, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam, but need to be expanded in scope and regional focus.
World Bank & ESMAP Climate Change Action
ESMAP Support to Climate Change Action Plan Implementation
Scale Up Clean Energy Systems
Power System Planning
Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform
Energy Efficiency
A Just Transition Away from Coal
ESMAP supports an increasing renewables portfolio in all aspects of solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal, offshore wind technology, and green hydrogen; as well as energy storage technologies, including with the Energy Storage Partnership. Rooftop solar, mini grids and off-grid solar are a key contribution to distributed renewables.
Tracking SDG 7: Energy Progress Report is a comprehensive tool to track energy data, including efficiency. The new program Energy Markets, Connectivity and Regional Trade and the AREP multi-donor trust fund inform efficiency in regional electricity trade. The Efficient and Clean Cooling initiative accelerates the uptake of sustainable cooling technologies and policies.
ESMAP’s Zero Carbon Public Sector initiative focuses on retrofitting public buildings. The Clean Cooking Fund supports modern energy cooking services that are clean and efficient. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) DOCK supports the transition to improved energy efficiency.
ESMAP knowledge helps reduce demand—through improved energy efficiency, demand management tools such as smart metering, and reduced transmission losses—and improve supply— through more reliable and resilient solutions for the power grid, including analytic support to utilities, electrification strategies and planning, and demand estimation. ESMAP plays a catalytic role in facilitating regional trade and building regional markets, including testing innovative market incentives and trading mechanisms in sub-Saharan Africa.
Advance fossil fuel reforms to eliminate or reduce energy subsidies through the ESMAP Energy Subsidy Reform Facility.
Leadership from the Supporting Coal Regions in Transition pioneers supply side pilots and solutions around the closure and repurposing of coal mines and coal-fired power plants on the demand side, solutions in the switch to low-carbon energy sources, and scaling up of renewable energy investments.
As part of the World Bank Group’s COVID-19 response, ESMAP developed a three-prong approach targeted at addressing key energy challenges exacerbated by the health crisis:
ESMAP’s COVID-19 Response
From March 2020 onward, the ESMAP COVID-19 response team consolidated its expertise and developed strong collaboration with the Bank’s Health Global Practice and global partners to rapidly deliver a climate-informed COVID-19 response activity focused on three key pillars. The ESMAP response was grounded in two main ESMAP programs: Improving Livelihoods and Human Capital, under the ESMAP Electricity Access program; and the Efficient, Clean Cooling program, under the ESMAP Accelerating Decarbonization program. Other ESMAP programs also contributed, including Off-Grid Solar, Mini Grid Facility, Battery Storage, Zero Carbon Public Sector, and Leave No One Behind.
The acute lack of access to sufficient and reliable electricity in many health facilities, with an estimated 1 billion people relying on health facilities without electricity
Significant gaps in the cold chains needed to deploy vaccines safely and efficiently
Severe financial stress on the off-grid and mini-grid energy access sector supporting more than 500 million people
Key Pillars
Electrification of health facilities with renewable energy
1
Reliable and climate-friendly cold chains
3
Energy Access Relief Fund in collaboration with 12 partners
ESMAP provided grants to Afghanistan, Haiti, and Liberia, small and fragile countries, to electrify priority healthcare facilities and vaccine cold storage facilities deemed necessary for the COVID-19 response. The grants were processed as part of new or restructuring of energy and health projects. In Nigeria, the ESMAP team helped the Rural Electrification Agency to restructure the Nigeria Electrification Project and allocate more than $70 million from the mini grid budget to rapidly deploy solar hybrid systems for 400 healthcare facilities on potential and likely mini-grid sites.
ESMAP was a part of the World Bank’s COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Taskforce, where it collaborated with key internal and external stakeholders, including WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi on the deployment of reliable and climate-friendly cold chains. In addition to its technical and advisory support, ESMAP allocated a total of $9 million to COVID-19 response projects in Cabo Verde, Comoros, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, São Tomé, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to support activities strengthening vaccine cold chains and health facilities. Leveraging its various knowledge products and sector expertise, the ESMAP team also provided in-kind technical cross-support to several World Bank Health operational teams to support COVID-19 response projects focused on reliable and climate-friendly cold chains and health facilities in the following countries: Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Philippines, and Tunisia.
ESMAP contributed $2.24 million to the $68 million Energy Access Relief Fund (EARF), a facility bringing together ESMAP, leading DFIs including FMO, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and CDC, private investors including Acumen, and foundations such as IKEA and Rockefeller, designed to provide emergency capital to energy access companies serving more than 20 million low-income households and micro-businesses in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In some countries, mini grids and off-grid solar solutions have generated about as many connections in the past 10 years, at a lower cost, as the national grid was able to deliver in the past 50 years, but COVID-19 is now threatening to disrupt this promising trend. Broken supply chains, increased costs of solar components, households struggling to make regular energy service payments, and continued COVID-19 lockdowns have crippled the energy access industry.
Getting to Gender Equality in Hydropower
Energy Storage Women’s Mentorship Program
West Africa
Capacity Building for Women Entrepreneurs in the Off-Grid Solar Sector
Ethiopia
Addressing Gender Gaps in the Mini Grids and Off-Grid Value Chain
Maldives
Increasing Female Labor Force in Renewable Energy
Azerbaijan and the Philippines
Maximizing Women’s Employment in Offshore Wind
Middle East and North Africa
The Gender Benefits of Electric Mobility
Pakistan
Increasing the Female Labor Force in Renewable Energy
Data to Quantify Gender Gaps
Employment Opportunities for Women in the Clean Cooking Value Chain
Malawi
How Cooling Can Help Women Farmers
Gender Focus in ESMAP
ESMAP has built considerable momentum for closing gender gaps through its global Gender and Energy program and its six regional gender programs. ESMAP gender activities address gender inequalities in the following areas:
In collaboration with the Gender team, ESMAP’s Hydropower Development Facility is developing a gender and hydropower global baseline and a report on women’s employment in hydropower—including a survey launched in the beginning of FY2022. This report will provide tools and evidence for practitioners to close employment gender gaps in the hydropower sector.
The Energy Storage Program (ESP) fosters gender equality in the energy storage sector through its Women in Energy Storage (WES) Mentoring Program in collaboration with the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET). The mentoring program focuses on career development and improving technical knowledge on thermal energy storage and battery storage for the grids, batteries for renewable energy hybrids, and mini-grids. In 2020, the program received over 240 applications from more than 50 countries. The first cohort of the WES Mentoring Program included 25 mid-career women from 17 countries, working in energy utilities, public sector, private sector, consulting, and academia. Following the success of the first edition, the ESP and GWNET plan on opening applications for the second cohort of mentees, thus continuing to work together towards closing gender gaps in the energy sector.
In West Africa, ESMAP’s Off-Grid Solar Scale-Up initiative is financing activities to close gender gaps in accessing economic opportunity in the off-grid solar sector. These activities are part of the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access project and they include (1) engaging with women entrepreneurs and providing them training and capacity building support; (2) improving women entrepreneurs’ access to credit; and (3) increasing women’s awareness of employment opportunities in the standalone solar systems market.
Gender has been mainstreamed into the ESMAP-funded activities supporting the design of the Access to Distributed Electricity and Lighting project in Ethiopia. This includes the production of analytical evidence on gender equality and design of possible actions to address gender gaps. As a result, specific actions have been included in the project design to increase the number of women in the mini grids and off-grid technology value chain and narrow the gender gap in productive uses of energy and entrepreneurship, and technical assistance to help commercial banks think through alternative credit risk assessment approaches to support female-led and female-owned companies and adopting diverse business practices.
ESMAP’s SRMI supported a Gender Action Plan in the Maldives Accelerating Renewable Energy Integration and Sustainable Energy project, focusing on increasing women’s participation in the Maldives utility. The team is also working with WePOWER, a regional practitioners’ network to improve female labor force participation, concentrating on the South Asia Power sector, and to leverage WePOWER’s expertise on gender aspects for the project in Maldives.
As part of the Malawi—Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling project, the ESMAP Cooling team is financing an analysis on how to improve farmers’ productivity by investing in cold storage. That assessment includes sex-disaggregated data and information and their analysis, and looks at how cooling can help women farmers in particular.
In Azerbaijan and the Philippines, ESMAP’s Offshore Wind program has commissioned roadmap studies that explore the actions needed to create a viable offshore wind market in these countries, and the market’s benefits (for example, economic value added, jobs created, cost of energy reduced, carbon emissions avoided). The roadmaps also detail steps to maximize women’s skills development and employment and to address gender challenges.
Countries in the MNA region are at different stages of deploying electric mobility. ESMAP’s Zero Carbon Public Sector team is providing technical assistance to unlock the development potential of electric mobility. This activity aims to identify the most effective interventions that will pave the way for country-specific loans to finance bus corridor electrification. The activity also includes an assessment of the potential gender benefits of electric mobility, examining, for example, gender differences in thermal comfort in the design and procurement of electric buses, and opportunities for women in the transformation of the workforce, sparked by technological change and the disruption of value chains.
With the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Hydropower and Renewable Energy Development project, the World Bank, including ESMAP’s Energy Storage team, is helping Pakistan shift its national energy mix to domestic clean resources by investing in renewable energy generation, including hydropower and solar. As part of this project, the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO) has committed to a target of 15 percent total female staff by FY2023. PEDO will also become a partner of WePOWER and develop a list of gender commitments under the five pillars of WePOWER.
Data from ESMAP’s Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) helped prepare the Access and Quality Improvement in Rwanda project. This included quantifying gender gaps in access to energy, as well as gaps in time management, willingness to pay for energy, and agency in the household—that is, the decision making process for the purchase of electric appliances.
In Bangladesh, the ESMAP Clean Cooking Fund is supporting the implementation of the Bangladesh Clean Cooking program, which plans to mobilize $82 million in investments to sell 4 million improved cookstoves and help 17.6 million beneficiaries. As part of this project, with funding from the Green Climate Fund, ESMAP is also supporting the development and implementation of the Gender Action Plan to integrate women into the clean cooking value chain (for example, cookstove production, marketing, and distribution).
MAlawi
Improving female workforce participation in the energy sector
Improving women’s productivity and livelihoods
Improving women’s access to modern energy services that meet needs
STORIES
$49.8 million in new activities approved in FY2021
A total of 100 activities were supported by ESMAP in FY2021
75 activities in 44 countries (excluding regional activities)
25 activities with a global focus
VIEW CHARTS
By the Numbers
Grant Amount by Region, FY2021 (US$ Million)
Grant Amount by Thematic/Cross Cutting Areas, FY2021 (US$ million)
Sections
Energy Access Relief Fund (EARF) in collaboration with 12 partners
Message from ESMAP Manager Gabriela Elizondo Azuela
UN HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE ON ENERGY
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