Energy Access for the Poor: Bringing a Development and Community Rights Perspective to Influence the Power Africa Debate

About this grant

Over the past five years, a number of initiatives have been launched to bring affordable, reliable electricity to over 600 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa who have no access to electricity, including the U.S. Power Africa initiative. Many of these programs have tended to promote top-down, large-scale projects, which predominately use fossil fuel or are large-scale renewable energy projects that provide limited benefit for poor communities. Small-scale, off-grid renewable energy is a new model that is successfully providing energy for poor rural communities in developing countries. To ensure expanded financial support for such off-grid renewable energy projects, the American Jewish World Service will develop a coalition of international development organizations working to build stronger commitments from United States government agencies working on the U.S. Power Africa initiative.