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

• Support the goal 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 March 2004, more than 300 organizations (government, industry, and civil society) have committed to the Partnership's Statement of Principles, thereby becoming GVEP partners. The partner breakdown includes 43% from the private sector, 34% from NGOs, 13% from bilateral and developing country governments, 7% consultants and 3% multilateral organizations. The GVEP website, www.gvep.org, offers a complete listing of partners. Partner activities include country action planning and implementation, capacity strengthening, financing facilitation, knowledge management and monitoring and evaluation.

Partnership Targets: Targets established for the 10-year Partnership, to be accomplished by the year 2012, include:

• Over 30 countries with a National Action Plan for energy-poverty programs.
• Over 300 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.

• National Action Plans and energy-poverty program development and implementation in 18 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 and Sri Lanka).
• Energy-poverty programs in development in 18 countries linked to the delivery of energy services to more than 20 million people.
• Training programs in energy services delivery for entrepreneurs, microfinance organizations and financial institution officers.
• 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 at least 10 countries.

Next Steps:

• Finalize National Action Plans, secure funding and move to implementation in 18+ target countries.
• Conduct regional energy-poverty workshop in Asia, identify energy-poverty needs/solutions in this region, and launch a pragmatic program.
• Implement entrepreneur, microfinance and financial institution training, and risk mitigation facility to leverage millions of dollars of investment in energy-poverty investments in developing countries.
• Secure funding for GVEP activities from private sector institutions, organizations and foundations ($2 million targeted in 2004; $10 million in 2005).
• 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 methodologies/frameworks for monitoring and evaluating the impact of GVEP at three levels: projects, output (e.g., development impact and links to MDGs) and the Partnership itself.
• Initiate planning for first Biennial Partner Meeting in 2005.
• Complete the move of the GVEP Technical Secretariat to a new host venue, most likely in the UK.

Other bilateral institutions have provided direct contributions totaling approximately $12 million to the GVEP Technical Secretariat. Additionally, GVEP related World Bank activities include Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) support for the following: (a) pledged $6.6 million for 43 new projects totaling $1.07 billion, (b) allocated $1.6 million for 9 projects already approved since WSSD ($300 million of new loans) and $2 million for 34 new projects under preparation to be approved in the next two fiscal years ($770 million of new loans).

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