Bangkok, 19 January 2012—New analysis from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), based on case studies from across Asia and the Pacific, calls for a set of “energy plus” services – one that combines access to modern energy for heating, cooking and electricity, with measures that generate cash, supplement incomes and improve health and education.
Issued the same week as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a global campaign to provide Sustainable Energy for All, the UNDP report confirms that there can be no development without energy, and that poverty cannot be addressed sustainably without paying due attention to energy services. The report adds that the poor need energy to get out of poverty, but energy alone is not enough.
The publication, Towards an “Energy Plus’ Approach for the Poor, reviewed 17 energy access projects across the region to find out what works and what does not work in breaking the vicious poverty-energy-poverty cycle.
The findings indicate that most energy projects adopt a minimalist approach, focusing on the basic energy needs of the poor for lighting homes, cooking and heating. However, “energy services per se do not reduce poverty,” says the report. “Instead, they transform people from being ‘poor without energy access’ to ‘poor with energy access.’”
Publications can be downloaded at: http://asia-pacific.undp.org/practices/environment/Publications/EnergyAccessReports.html
