ENERGY FOR DEVELOPMENT
Energy has a crucial role to play in supporting the international community's efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Lack of access to adequate, affordable, reliable, safe and environmentally benign energy is a severe constraint on development. And the number of people without that access is staggering: two billion people lack clean, safe cooking fuels and instead depend on inefficient, costly, environmentally unsustainable, health threatening traditional biomass sources.
Poor people see access to energy as a priority. Many already pay more per unit of energy than those of us who are better off because of inefficient technologies, corruption and limited economies of scale. A new approach needs to be taken to meet poor people's energy needs and maximize their contribution to the MDGs. For CARE, this includes:
- Taking a people-centred approach that sees past the technical issues to deliver energy services that meet peoples' real-life needs and urgent priorities.
- Ensuring that poor people - and especially women - participate in the decision-making process about how to meet their energy needs.
- Working at local, national and international levels to develop pro-poor policies based on real evidence of the impact of energy on poor people.
- Building a deeper understanding of the links between energy and poverty reduction.
For decades, CARE has been developing projects to help meet poor people's energy needs. Now, we are exploring how to exponentially expand access by the world's poorest communities and households to improved energy sources by tapping into the carbon markets.
We have recently formed an internal Energy Working Group and are currently developing a portfolio of pilot projects which is likely to include energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in Africa, Asia and Central America.
