81278891-GBE knowledge products: Analysing GBE impact, knowing what works

The initiative "Green People"s Energy" (GBE) is designed to support the achievement of SDG 7.1 - access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. It promotes decentralized renewable energy systems in rural regions in nine African countries. The focus of GBE is on rural regions and decentralised renewable energy technologies for productive use. Activities often target agricultural cooperatives, businesses and social institutions and aim to increase their productivity, services and the population's incomes through (productive) use of clean, reliable energy (productive use of energy, PuE). Activities contributing to the initiative"s objectives are currently being implemented in Ethiopia, Benin, Cote d"Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia. The areas of intervention include (a) the promotion of local small-scale projects to improve energy supply, (b) strengthening the foundations for the development of sustainable energy sectors through education and training, (c) the promotion of small holder famer"s cooperatives, small businesses and social institutions to increase their productivity, services and the population's incomes through access and (productive) use of clean, reliable energy, (d) the improvement of the framework conditions for financial and political participation in decentralised energy projects, and (e) the promotion of partnerships and the dissemination of information on decentralised renewable energies. The target groups include the energy users reached by the project in the project regions of the partner countries of the project, especially in rural areas, as well as the groups of people who contribute to energy supply. These include small and medium-sized enterprises and financially weak social institutions that use energy productively to enable income-generating activities or to use energy technologies or services. Intermediaries are experts and managers from key actors in the energy sector. These include producers, traders' associations, ministries and government institutions for regulations, norms and standards, (rural) energy agencies, non-governmental organisations and consultancies that are directly or indirectly involved in the production, dissemination or maintenance of materials, equipment or components for energy efficiency or the use of renewable energies. As local citizens' initiatives are also to be promoted in this project, municipal and regional governments or associations, cooperatives and other citizens' associations play an important role. As an initiative, GBE aims to set impulses for German and international development cooperation within a short timeframe. Therefore, the GBE country teams pilot new approaches and promote promising business cases in order to enable up-scaling and replication. Activities range from the creation of results-based or other innovative financing mechanisms to promote the sale and use of RE-technologies like solar irrigation systems, solar cooling appliances or solar dryers amongst small holder farmers to piloting a fee-for-service approach to finance energy access for health centers to business development measures for tea factories to support their energy transformation. In order to understand the impact of the programme"s on-going skills development, electrification and especially PuE measures on jobs, incomes, productivity and turnover and to assess which approaches work best and why, GBE plans to collect additional data, analyse quantitative and qualitative impacts and develop knowledge products to feed into the sector discussion and support the design and up-scaling of approaches by political partners or other programmes. This data collection based on surveys and qualitative interviews, analysis and interpretation of results summarized in case study reports as well as the design of knowledge products and a project closing brochure is subject of this tender.