Recognizing the additional pressures a changing climate will put on poor countries, USAID is focusing on the development and deployment of clean energy programs. In developing countries, energy demand is expected to increase sharply in the near future. As energy consumption grows, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are likely to increase as well. To minimize energy-related growth in GHG emissions while helping countries develop their economies and meet poverty reduction goals, USAID supports climate-friendly interventions in the energy sector. These include investments in: end use efficiency improvement (demand side); improvements in generation, transmission, distribution (supply side); cleaner transport; fuel switching to cleaner fuels; policy and institutional reform; and renewable energy, such as solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower.
Select Programs
Improving Health Facility Infrastructure
The goal of the Improving Health Facility Infrastructure (IHFI) program is to improve critical infrastructure services at health facilities in developing countries and ensure that measures are taken to enhance the sustainability of USG investments. The focus of this program is on a subset of the 15 PEPFAR focus countries which currently include Haiti, Botswana, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Vietnam, Tanzania, Rwanda, Namibia, Kenya, Guyana, and Cote d’Ivoire.
PEPFAR is the United States Government (USG) President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief program. PEPFAR is a multi-country, multi-billion dollar initiative to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Many PEPFAR focus countries are finding the effectiveness, sustainability, and reach of prevention; care and treatment programs are directly compromised by the lack of reliable power at health facilities.
The USAID Energy Team has been providing support to USG PEPFAR programs in Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Zambia and Guyana to improve energy services at critical health facilities. To date, this support has consisted of initial assessments in each country, training courses for local energy experts and PEPFAR partners, facility retrofits, and the development of several knowledge management tools on health facility energy issues. For more information, visit the program website: http://www.poweringhealth.org.
The Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative
The Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI) is a flexible, dynamic USG program that complements a number of reform efforts. The EGCI aims to strengthen energy sector governance by providing technical support to governments of developing countries that are on the verge of becoming oil and gas producers for the next decade. The EGCI will include the provision of technical assistance to empower countries to wisely manage resources and revenue generated from oil and gas. This involves bringing together the U.S. Government’s top experts along with their unmatched global expertise on oil and gas sector management within a formalized and integrated technical assistance program focused on the energy sector. For more information, visit, http://www.state.gov/s/ciea/egci/index.htm
Energy Utility Partnership Program
The Energy Utility Partnership Program increases access in developing countries to environmentally sound energy services by (a) improving policy and legal frameworks to establish necessary market conditions for the private sector delivery of energy services and environmental management services; (b) increasing institutional ability to provide or deliver energy and environmental management services in the new and enhanced markets; and (c) increasing public understanding of, and participation in, decisions regarding delivery of energy and environmental management services. For more information, visit http://www.usea.org/Programs/EUPP/EUPP.htm
Global Regulatory Network
The Global Regulatory Network (GRN) promotes a better understanding of complex regulatory issues faced by public utility regulators in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. For countries with recently created associations, the GRN facilitates information exchange and provides local capacity building for utility regulatory commissions. For more information, visit http://www.globalregulatorynetwork.org
Partnerships
Sustainable Energy Use Alliance
The Sustainable Energy Use Alliance is a partnership between USAID and the International Copper Association (ICA) to provide support to several energy projects around the globe. In Brazil, USAID and ICA worked with AES Eletropaulo (AES), an electricity distribution company working in metropolitan Sao Paulo, to reduce illegal electricity connection in nearby slums, both for safety and revenue reasons. The alliance is focused on ‘regularizing“ slum electricity customers in one area, and emphasized affordability and community involvement. USAID coordinated the alliance and provided technical assistance, and ICA provided the rewiring of homes, energy-efficient refrigerators and transformers, and anti-theft coaxial cable, sized for energy efficiency, to be used in service drops and secondary distribution.
Slum Electrification and Loss Reduction Program
The Slum Electrification and Loss Reduction Program (SELR) is a collaborative effort between USAID, the International Copper Promotion Council India (ICPCI), the World Bank administered Global Partnership for Output-Based Aid (GPOBA), and Reliance Infrastructure Limited (RInfra). This program launched in November 2009 is a pilot project to provide legal and safe electricity connections in slum areas. The objectives of this program act is to develop, test and evaluate customized approaches to improve electricity access, reduce losses, and normalize services in slum areas for wide-scale implementation whilst demonstrating the use of output based aid as an effective means to delivering subsidies in such environments.
