Access to clean energy

The challenge 

Providing people with access to sustainable energy has been neglected in humanitarian settings over the past decades. One of the main challenges is the lack of funding available for humanitarian energy interventions, and the need for innovative approaches to fill the funding gap.

Access to energy, increased energy efficiency and the increased use of renewable energy is crucial to strengthening the resilience to environmental issues like the current climate crisis. 

Urgent action from UN agencies and NGOs, donors and the private sector in partnership with governments is required to ensure that displaced people are included in efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 7, which aims to ‘ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’ by 2030. Today, humanitarian organisations lack the necessary technical knowledge and resources to fulfil this goal.

Read more about the widening energy access gap and what can be done to close it in our report written together with BCG: EmPowering Africa's most vulnerable.

How we work

NORCAP works strategically to recruit the best energy experts available – on solar energy, bioenergy, cooking energy , energy efficiency and coordination - to name a few. Our goal is to provide experts to organisations in the humanitarian sector that are ambitious in changing the way they use energy.

Action on climate change: How NORCAP's technical expertise mitigates climate crisis effects.

We push the UN, NGOs and civil society to move away from diesel generators to clean, renewable energy. Collaboration with the private sector is important, both as advisors to our experts, but also as private companies will provide many of the energy solutions NORCAP is working to make available.

NORCAP is the world’s largest provider of energy expertise to humanitarian operations. We currently have more than 20 energy experts supporting our strategic partners on mission in African countries such as Kenya, South Sudan, Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt and Burundi.

Our work can be divided into three parts:

Improving people’s access to energy
Vulnerable populations need energy for cooking, heating, education and other electrical appliances such as phones and lighting. Our experts work to better understand the needs of the people and communities they meet, to identify the best energy solution for any given setting. Ensuring clean solutions are relevant to the needs of the people of concern and that suggested solutions are both financially and environmentally affordable is a key part of our experts’ work.

Greening humanitarian operations
Humanitarian agencies still largely depend on diesel generators. While diesel generators are a tested and reliable solution, they come at a high price for both the operations and the environment. Our experts work with organisations to help them transition from diesel generators to sustainable energy solutions, such as clean solar power. Due to the considerable reduction in cost of solutions like solar energy, combined with innovative finance models offered by the private sector, a transition to clean energy can unlock funds that humanitarian organisations can use for other needs. One example is how the NRC's country offices in South Sudan are starting to implement solar power after an assessment made by NORCAP's Energy Expert.

Increasing coordination in the energy sector
When a crisis strikes, planning related to the carbon footprint, clean energy solutions and deforestation is not on top of the agenda. NORCAP supports efforts to ensure that energy access, which is a critical part of any emergency operation, is clean, sustainable and cost efficient. To achieve this, we support the secretariat of the Global Plan for Action (GPA) for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement, which coordinates the UN and other major actors on the humanitarian arena.