Early public investment key to universal access to energy utilities – UN report

Nearly a million people in rural Nepal have access to energy thanks to two United Nations development programmes which show that early investment by national governments and communities can attract private financing and extend access to utilities, according to a UN report released today.

“High public investment in early years of capacity development is crucial to get communities to the point where a market can take shape and where you can interest the commercial sector,” Olav Kjorven, UNDP Director of Policy and Assistant Secretary-General, told journalists in New York.

The report, Capacity development for scaling up decentralized energy access programmes, builds on lessons from two decentralized energy projects in Nepal that provided electricity by micro-hydro power to 250,000 people and which provided access to improved cooking stoves to 580,000 others.

According to the report, the key to the programme’s success was early public investment in capacity development, which developed local and national capacities required to deliver, manage, operate and maintain the solutions to providing energy access in rural areas.

Once made, these investments can help drive down the cost of utilities and attract substantial financing from communities and the private sources at later stages, as is the trend in Nepal.

The benefits of the improved energy programme include better lighting in schools and hospital, reduced health risks from indoor air pollution, diversified livelihoods and increased incomes among the poorest segments of Nepalese society.

“All of these development dividends translate into accelerating achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” said Kiran Man Singh, National Programme Manager of the Rural Energy Development Programme in Nepal, who also participated in the launch of the report.

Its release comes three months ahead of a high-level summit planned for UN Headquarters in New York on accelerating progress towards the MDG deadline of 2015.

“There is no energy Millennium Development Goal, but what we find is that expanding access to energy is something that leads to progress across all of the MDGs, so it’s a cross-cutting issue of the highest importance,” Mr. Kjorven said, referring to the eight goals which include ending poverty and hunger, reaching universal education and increasing environmental sustainability.

In addition, the Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change has called for universal access to modern energy services by 2030.

The report’s findings could have consequences for a majority of people. Nearly half of the world, or some three billion people, lives without access to modern energy for lighting, cooking, heating and mechanical power for productive activities.

In addition, some two million people die every year due to health risks and fires associated with burning solid fuels indoors in under-ventilated kitchens.

Nepal, whose Government helped pioneer the programmes with UNDP, is working to expand their reach to bring energy to a greater percentage of its population. Kenya and other countries are interested in applying the same strategy.