UN, Donors and CSOs Call for Global Action Towards Universal Clean Energy Access Among Displaced People and Host Communities

This article has been re-posted from The Moving Energy Initiative. View the original article here. 

Berlin. 16 January 2017. UN agencies, donors and civil society groups are calling on governments and international and national leaders to ensure that the humanitarian sector contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7, with the aim that “every person affected by conflict or natural disaster has access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy services by 2030."

Currently, 65.6 million people are displaced, with thousands more affected by crises, such as natural disasters, not included in this figure. Of the displaced who are living in camp settings, around 90% are without electricity access and 80% rely on solid fuels for cooking. In the rush to respond to humanitarian crises, access to safe, reliable and clean energy for those displaced can be difficult to achieve. With a funding shortage and inadequate policies and practices to make sure the humanitarian community provides sustainable and clean energy, current energy practices are often inefficient, polluting, unsafe for the users, and harmful to the surrounding environment.

At a two-day conference laying the foundations for a Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Solutions in Situations of Displacement, 120 delegates agreed to collaborate to:

• Improve energy practice and policy in humanitarian settings. This will result in reduced energy and associated environmental pressures in host countries, and improved resilience of communities and host countries.
• Involve displaced people and host communities in the new Global Plan of Action to reflect their priorities and needs. This will require coordinated strategies and effective communication across all stakeholders for long-term sustainable energy access.
• Bolster finance for sustainable infrastructure investments. This will include delivering innovative financing methods for the sector.
• Utilise the skills and capacities of displaced people and ensure they have an active role for future energy interventions. This includes creating jobs where possible.
• Harmonise and standardise high-quality, usable data and evidence across the sector for monitoring, learning and evaluation.

To do this effectively, a group of leading organisations are coming together as a sector to support humanitarian organizations in delivering agency priorities on gender and diversity, protection, gender-based violence (GBV), and environmental sustainability – all through the lens of improved and sustainable energy provision.

The organisations leading the development of the Global Action Plan are UNHCR, UNITAR, IOM, GIZ, The Moving Energy Initiative, Practical Action, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, and the UN Foundation.

The Global Action Plan Conference organisers thank the Federal Foreign Office of Germany for their support for this initiative.