Environment and Energy

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UNDP's approach to sustainable energy

UNDP focuses on six thematic practice areas, selected because of developing country demand: poverty reduction, democratic governance, sustainable energy and the environment, crisis management, ICT, and HIV/AIDS. Sustainable energy is thus placed as one of the thematic pillars of UNDP for achieving poverty reduction and sustainable development goals as set by the Millennium Declaration.

UNDP's efforts in sustainable energy support the Millennium Summit objective of reducing by half the number of people living in poverty by 2015. To do this concerted international efforts are needed to help reduce by half the proportion of people without access to modern energy. Indeed, none of the agreed upon Millennium Summit development goals can be achieved without major increase in energy services in the developing world. UNDP's experience in integrated development solutions gives it a unique perspective to address the multiple social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable energy approaches. UNDP is able to work with multiple stakeholders from the public and private sectors, consumer groups, technical experts as well as civil society. This multi-dimensional development perspective, cross-sectoral working ability and inclusiveness in constituency building are UNDP's greatest strengths and define its development niche.

UNDP defined its energy strategy in the UNDP Initiative for Sustainable Energy (UNISE) in 1996. UNISE discussed how energy relates to UNDP's thematic areas and programme goals (poverty alleviation, improvement of the situation of women, job creation, environmental protection, etc.) and outlined how energy programmes and projects can become instrumental in achieving sustainable human development.

In 2000, UNDP in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affair (UNDESA) and the World Energy Council (WEC), established the World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability, which provides the best current thinking on the social, economic, environmental and security issues linked to energy, and the compatibility of different energy options. The World Energy Assessment has defined "sustainable energy" as energy produced and used in ways that support human development over the long term in all its social, economic and environmental dimensions. It concluded that the adoption of new policies that encourage the delivery of energy services in cleaner and more efficient ways is a prerequisite to address current development problems. The World Energy Assessment showed that by acting now to embrace these policies, a more equitable, economically prosperous, and environmentally sound world is within our reach.

In the fall of 2001, UNDP launched the Thematic Trust Fund on Energy for Sustainable Development to mobilise resources and promote coherency across UNDP in its approach to energy issues. It established four areas of priorities that UNDP should focus on to promote energy as a means to achieve sustainable development: strengthening national policy frameworks: promoting rural energy services; promoting clean energy technologies; and increasing access to investment financing for sustainable energy.

The Trust Fund modality is a new, more flexible and agile co-financing modality specifically designed for a rapid approval of proposals and swift disbursement of funds at the country level. The Energy Thematic Trust Fund has been designed to be fully complementary to the Global Environment Facility, building on UNDP's existing track record and is a means to help integrate GEF programmes. The thematic trust fund, together with the existing UNDP-GEF programme, can address a full range of sustainable energy activities.

Around the world UNDP has a well-defined presence in sustainable energy issues, both due to our role as a GEF implementing agency, as well as through core-funded energy activities.

Last year, about 70% of all UNDP country offices surveyed reported working on sustainable energy with the major areas of focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy planning. Emphasis on climate change issues clearly emerged based on GEF funding and overlays the three areas mentioned. Core funding on sustainable energy issues focuses on rural energy, community development and the provision of social services.