SEforALL generates disruptive solutions for sustainable development.
Sunergise co founder Paul Makumbe at the SEforAll Charrettes in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Sustainable Development for All (SEforALL) has today released the report of outcomes from the Charrettes held in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 18-20 June. The report highlights the disruptive solutions and next steps for taking those forward. SEforALL will continue working and supporting partners to implement the solutions over the coming weeks and months. The messages out of the Charrettes will also be carried forward to influence major global events like the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in September.
Sunergise co founder Paul Makumbe was invited to join a diverse list of experts from around the world to participate in the intensive, two-day interactive sessions each focused on a different issue on the critical path to delivering to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7). His focus - finding solutions for ‘last-mile’ energy access.
Participants were greeted with a rousing message from Rachel Kyte, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. “We can’t keep on having the same conversation amongst the same people asking the same questions and expecting something transformative to happen,” said Kyte, during the event’s opening session. “You are here for a reason.” That reason was to generate new ideas for achieving access to clean, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all by 2030. Specifically to catalyze disruptive solutions in the areas of access to electricity.
Paul Makumbe says, “Some common themes emerged from the working groups. The need to focus on the bottom up - to ensure precise needs are better met and to inform market participants and policymakers. The need to build collaborative platforms - to allow different stakeholders to come together and have access to the same body of evidence for decision-making. The need to overcome fragmentation in funding - so markets can grow at speed and scale. And the need to view energy as a public good - to provides the means for achieving other development priorities.“
SEforALL is an international organization working with leaders in government, the private sector and civil society to drive further, faster action toward achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7, which calls for universal access to sustainable energy by 2030, and the Paris Agreement, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit climate warming to below 2° Celsius. Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Sustainable Energy for All initiative in 2011. In the words of Ban Ki-moon, “Energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and an environment that allows the world to thrive.” Almost 1 billion people in the world today have no access to electricity, and roughly 3 times that number use dirty cooking fuels. SDG7 sets out to change these numbers.
See more about SEforAll here:
See the 2019 SEforAll Charettes Report here:
https://www.seforall.org/publications/2019-seforall-charrettes-repor
