Sustainable Energy is 100% Renewable – Recommendations for the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative
The Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) initiative pledged to ensure universal access to modern energy services, double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030. Yet, it’s self-published progress reports states that the initiative has fallen short of its objectives.
This report summarises the initiatives often underlined structural shortcomings. Namely, a lack of integration into other UN frameworks, an excessive focus on centralization and profitability, a disproportionate emphasis on private finance, a lack of inclusion of diverse business models and a lack of representation and civil society involvement. The report then examines the SEforALL Action Agendas for eight African countries.
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The Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative was launched by the UN in 2011. It pledged to ensure universal access to modern energy services, double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030. Yet, in 2015 the SEforALL initiative itself published a progress report stating that “overall progress over the tracking period falls substantially short of what is required to attain the SEforALL objectives by 2030”. In 2016, again the initiative declared, “as a global community, we are simply not moving fast enough to meet the challenge”. Considering that as of 2016, 1.2 billion people are without access to electricity, and the global climate crisis continues to unfold, supporting the goals and ambition of the initiative is imperative and, above all, urgent. This report thus provides an analysis of the initiative’s limitations along with a description of possible ways to improve it. First, this report presents a summary of the initiative’s structural shortcomings as highlighted by previous studies. In particular, five issues have been consistently underlined. Namely, a lack of integration into other UN frameworks, an excessive focus on centralization and profitability, a disproportionate emphasis on private finance, a lack of inclusion of diverse business models and a lack of representation and civil society involvement.
