1. Programming for Rural Energy Services
 2. Energy and Rural Development
 3. Defining Productive Uses of Renewable Energy
 4. Eligibility for GEF Funding
 5. Guiding Principles for a PURE Approach
 6. Designing a UNDP-GEF PURE Project
 7. Lessons Learned from Rural Energy Programmes with PURE approaches
 8. Contacts 9. Definitions

UNDP Focus

This programming site suggests two key groups of renewable energy users in rural areas as the entry points for stimulating markets for RETs:

  1. micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), for example, in the agricultural sector (both for improved agriculture and agro-processing) and

  2. institutional users of rural energy services, for example, in the health and education sectors.

This is a departure from past energy sector focused approaches. The focus under this integrated productive use approach is on identifying those regions and/or sectors which experience economic growth (or have the potential to do so) - or have a public expenditure budget - and then introduce RETs through government or donor funded programmes or, where feasible, the private sector. The challenge then becomes how RETs can best be introduced to encourage production and productivity, and impact on rural development, with issues such as access to financing and local business development support to be considered. Simultaneously, the demand for RETs among rural social service institutions would contribute to both establishing rural markets for RETs and creating a higher standard of living (poverty alleviation) in rural areas.

The uniqueness of this approach is that with its twin perspectives - market development for RETs to reduce Green House Gases on the one hand, and economic and social development on the other - it focuses on productive uses of RETs. This offers clear opportunities for reconciling local development agendas with the global climate change agenda, thus integrating GEF's and UNDP's respective mandates.