Transforming Humanitarian Energy Access
Setting the scene
In June 2023, 110 million people were displaced worldwide, with UNHCR projecting that there will be more than 130 million forcibly displaced persons in 2024, double the number from just 12 years ago. The global humanitarian system – initially designed to provide urgent, life-saving assistance in response to short-term displacement – has struggled to find solutions for what has become a prolonged phenomenon often exceeding 10-15 years. Interventions by humanitarian agencies are still bound to relatively short funding cycles (1-2 years), which do not allow for larger and long-term investments that are crucial for the provision of improved and sustainable social services. This includes access to clean energy, a key catalyst for achieving many development goals. In refugee camps, 89% of the population lack access to electricity and 77% do not have access to clean cooking solutions, often relying on inefficient, hazardous fuel such as biomass and kerosene. Limited access to clean energy sources hampers economic development and livelihood opportunities, food and water security, increases environmental degradation, and strains peaceful coexistence of refugees and host communities.
Many barriers hinder the uptake of high quality, reliable clean energy products and services: on the demand side, displaced communities have limited knowledge of, access to and purchasing power for quality energy products; on the supply side, lack of financial incentives, political and regulatory challenges, limited market information and infrastructure constraints prevent the private sector from effectively serving displaced communities. There are also limited efforts on both sides to invest in the agency and power of displacement-affected communities and refugee-led organizations (RLOs) as actors of change. This calls for a paradigm shift, aimed at combining the forces of the private and public sector to fund, deliver and leverage inclusive, sustainable, affordable and long-term energy interventions for communities affected by displacement.
Transforming energy delivery models for humanitarian settings
The Transforming Humanitarian Energy Access (THEA) program aims to address the lack of sustainable energy solutions for displacement-affected communities by changing the way energy is delivered in humanitarian settings. It does so by leveraging a blend of research and evidence-building, data-driven advocacy, and the implementation of market-based energy interventions. By identifying promising, inclusive energy delivery models, THEA aims to facilitate their replication and scaling, ultimately enhancing energy access for displacement-affected communities. The program will focus on three different country contexts – Uganda, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh – to identify inclusive, replicable and scalable business models along a spectrum of market readiness. THEA is implemented by Mercy Corps in partnership with Ashden and the Global Platform for Action on Sustainable Energy in Displacement Settings (GPA), and is funded by the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and managed by the Carbon Trust. The program duration is from September 2024 until December 2026.
THEA will be delivered through three work packages (WP):
- WP1: Data-driven evidence and research at a local and global level. Outcome: Humanitarian stakeholders (FDPs, U.N., NGOs, donors, investors, governments, private sector) can make informed programming and policy decisions over humanitarian energy needs, gaps, and available delivery models.
- THEA will support the collection and analysis of data on humanitarian energy access to continue to fill knowledge gaps and monitor progress on increasing sustainable energy in displacement settings.
- THEA will build the evidence base on what works when it comes to delivering energy in humanitarian settings and use this knowledge to inform advocacy efforts and guide the implementation of energy interventions.
- WP2: Implementation and codification. Outcome: Humanitarian stakeholders have a set of inclusive and financially sustainable models that can be replicated and scaled.
- THEA will codify existing market-based energy interventions to extrapolate guidelines for other actors to inform future programming, as well scaling up and replicating existing work.
- THEA will work with refugee-led enterprises to promote new technologies and inclusive financing mechanisms to grow their businesses and capture lessons learned.
- WP3: High-level advocacy, dissemination and systemic disruption. Outcome: A THEA “Evidence to Action” group, composed of people with lived experience of displacement; non-energy experts and decision-makers from IOM, UNHCR, WFP and MC; and GPA Coordination Unit, meets every 6 months and coordinates on models for inclusive humanitarian energy delivery in situations of displacement.
- THEA will support the creation of an Advisory Board called the “THEA: Evidence to Action” group that will enable a bi-directional flow of information from humanitarian energy practitioners to a broader audience within humanitarian agencies and the donor community at large.
- THEA will advocate for a shift in the way humanitarian agencies deliver energy and identify potential entry points to co-design alternative delivery models that could be employed by large humanitarian agencies in alignment with their procurement processes and mandates.
