The Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) is a 10-year initiative that seeks to increase access to modern energy services for those in developing countries in a manner that enhances economic and social development and reduces poverty. GVEP partners include developing countries and industrialized governments, multilateral organizations, private firms, NGOs and other interested stakeholders. GVEP is one of three programs under The Clean Energy Initiative (CEI): Powering Sustainable Development from Village to Metropolis, launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg in August 2002.

Statement of Principles:

By participating in the Global Village Energy Partnership, partners commit to:

• Increase and facilitate access to modern energy service while improving economic and social development, the quality of life and services, and reducing poverty. 
•  Promote the use of environmentally sound technology options in a range of rural, peri-urban and urban areas where energy access is lacking and/or in sectors where the provision of energy services is not presently sustainable (e.g., agriculture, education, health, water, telecommunications, infrastructure, rural development, and small business). 
• Combine, as appropriate, increased use of renewable energy resources, more efficient production and use of energy, greater reliance on advanced energy technologies (including cleaner fossil fuel technologies), with the sustainable use of traditional energy resources.
• Facilitate policy and market regulatory frameworks that create the economic, social and institutional conditions to improve access to reliable, affordable, economically viable, and socially acceptable and environmentally sound energy services.
• Enhance human and institutional capacity in the delivery of energy services. 
• Engage in the Partnership without discrimination with respect to race, religion or gender. 
• Ensure that Partnership activities are effectively integrated and coordinated with related activities at the local, national, regional or global levels, including programs implemented by partner organizations, host country governments and other partnerships. 
• Establish and support implementation of work-plans for activities assisted by the Partnership.

Partners:

As of February 18, 2005, more than 574 organizations (government, private sector, and civil society have committed to the Partnership's Statement of Principles, thereby becoming GVEP partners. The partner breakdown includes 42% from NGOs, 30% from the private sector, 10% from bilateral and developing country governments, 8% consultants and 3% multilateral organizations. Please see the GVEP website for a complete listing of partners. Partner activities include country action planning and implementation, capacity strengthening, financing facilitation, knowledge management and monitoring and evaluation. The work of GVEP is supported by the Technical Secretariat (TS).

Partnership Targets:

Targets established for the 10-year Partnership, to be accomplished by the year 2014, include:

• Over 30 countries with a National Action Plan for energy-poverty programs.
• Over 400 million incremental people with access to modern energy services. 
• Over 50,000 communities serviced with electricity. 
• Financing leveraged from multilateral, bilateral and host country sources in support of energy access. 
• Cadre of trained entrepreneurs in the delivery of energy services. 
• Measurable improvements in quality of life by those served.

Progress Against Targets:

Since its inception in 2002, GVEP has conducted the following:

• National Action Plans and energy-poverty program development and implementation in 19 countries. These include Latin America (Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico); Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia); and Asia (India, Philippines and Sri Lanka). 
• National energy-poverty programs in development in 20 countries linked to the delivery of energy services to more than 20 million people. To date, country focus has been in the Latin America and Africa regions, and include: Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Plans are in place to launch a GVEP Asia regional program in 2005.
• Three training programs in energy services delivery for entrepreneurs, microfinance organizations and financial institution officers reaching over 150 individuals. 
• Risk mitigation facility in development to leverage local financial capital markets and offer pre-investment support to developing country bankers to increase their investment in energy access projects. 
• Shifting of host country government, USAID, World Bank and other donor funding from electrification to broader energy-poverty and modern energy service delivery issues in over 10 countries.

Next Steps:

• Finalize National Action Plans, secure funding and move to implementation in the 20 target countries. 
• Conduct a regional energy-poverty workshop in Asia to include Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam to identify energy-poverty needs/solutions in this region, and launch a pragmatic program. The four already-held energy-poverty workshops involved 500 participants from multi-stakeholder backgrounds, including ministerial and other senior officials, from 30 countries. 
• Implement entrepreneur, microfinance and financial institution training programs and risk mitigation facility to leverage millions of dollars of investment in energy-poverty investments in developing countries. Training programs will target small and medium enterprises, commercial banks, microfinance institutions and consumer organizations. Focus will be on Brazil, and selected countries in Africa and Asia (to be determined).
• Launch GVEP Actions Program (GAP) Fund to support upstream project development activities of GVEP partners. 
• Leverage multilateral and regional bank funding for GVEP project implementation. 
• Document lessons learned and best practices in energy-poverty areas and conduct outreach to partner organizations. 
• Develop GVEP knowledge management and communication strategy. 
• Develop methodologies/frameworks for monitoring and evaluating the impact of GVEP at three levels: projects, output (e.g., development impact and links to the goals contained in the Millennium Declaration and the Partnership itself. 
• Initiate planning for first Biennial Partner Meeting in 4^th Quarter 2005.

Resources:

USAID’s GVEP related activities in fiscal year 2003 and 2004 totaled $55 million. An estimated 10.2 million people received new or improved access to modern energy services as a result.

Other bilateral institutions have provided direct contributions totaling approximately $12 million to the GVEP Technical Secretariat. Additionally, GVEP is leading to investments in energy-poverty reduction activities by the World Bank and other regional banks in excess of $770 million of new loans.

USG Primary Point of Contact:

Gordon Weynand, U.S. Agency for International Development (Phone: 202-712-1864; email: goweynand@usaid.gov).