Webinar: COVID 19 & CSOs: Redefining funding for the Global South
Power for All’s Chief Campaign Officer William Brent joined a webinar organized by the ACCESS Coalition to discuss the coping mechanisms for civil society organizations (CSOs) in the renewable energy sector during COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on funding opportunities; how to address the existing inequalities; and what strategies CSOs at the community level should employ to access these funds.
WHO: This is how electricity shortage impacts healthcare delivery in Africa
As part of Power for All’s Powering Health Campaign in Africa and Asia, we teamed up with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Dr. Maria Neira, Director for the Department of Public Health and Environment, as she joined CNBC Africa to talk about why distributed energy resources have a critical role in the delivery of health services especially in sub-Saharan Africa where only 28 percent of health facilities have access to reliable electricity.
Unlocking utilities of the future
The dual challenges of delivering universal energy access and the underperformance of utilities in sub-Saharan Africa are interconnected. Advances in digitization and distributed energy technologies offer potential solutions to both challenges at once. Rebekah Shirley, Power for All’s head of research and Benjamin Attia, a senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables recently published a working paper with the Duke Global Working Paper Series ‘Unlocking Utilities of the Future in Sub-Saharan Africa'. Using case studies, they have identified key regulatory reforms needed to transform the sector, and best practice models for novel public-private sector engagement to unlock opportunity.
Renewable energy for sustainable rural livelihoods
Rural 21, an international Journal for Rural Development recently published an article written by our head of research Rebekah Shirley with a focus on jobs and agriculture. The article, creating livelihoods through clean energy and agriculture, argues that not only could the decentralized renewable energy technologies help in meeting energy demand in rural areas in a climate-friendly manner and promoting innovations in the agri-food sector, they are also an important potential driver of local job creation and the formalization of labor – provided that the skills gaps hindering the sector’s growth can be closed.