Overall, Figure 7 shows that all three of the CRRF countries are moving towards a framework that supports refugee integration and self-reliance with generally lenient policies towards ‘refugee freedom to work’ and freedom of movement. In all three, these relatively progressive national policies have coincided with new energy access innovation and financing to enable and respond to externally financed humanitarian energy access projects. Despite this, there are differences in how policy is applied. For example, while refugees in Rwanda have the right to freedom of movement and work, in practice it is difficult for them to move around because of bureaucracy as well as the remote location of some camps. Officially they must receive permission to leave the camps, which alone can take up to a month. Refugees must return to camps regularly to renew their permits and register a minimum presence in order to receive cash and access benefits. Tanzania – which withdrew from the CRRF in 2018 – recognizes the importance of investment to boost access to clean cooking technologies, as part of efforts to solve the environmental problems to which it (with justification) sees refugee communities contributing. Limiting the economic freedoms of refugees undermines these efforts. It also has negative consequences for the local host community, whose own economy depends on the (mostly informal) exchange of labour, goods and services with refugees (including firewood and charcoal where scarcity has driven up prices). Numerous initiatives have shown that when refugees have vulnerable incomes and restricted livelihood opportunities, sales of energy are unlikely to scale or be sustainable. If rights to work are restricted, refugees may not be able to benefit from the training and job opportunities that energy projects offer.
National response plans
The cases discussed in this paper illustrate how a number of governments with long-term refugee populations have supported some form of humanitarian response strategy that aims to facilitate sustainable energy access by coordinating between government agencies and donors. All the focus countries have developed their own response plan, although the timelines, funding and ultimately the success of the plans have differed. At their heart, response plans can allow humanitarian agencies and governments to jointly identify thematic priorities, allow various actors to streamline their work, and actively bring on board funding for these priority interventions. This is particularly crucial for energy and environmental issues where there is no central agency with responsibility (or funding) for the issue. Used wisely, humanitarian response plans allow agencies and governments to expressly fundraise for large-scale energy programming in humanitarian settings. Chatham House analysis of existing humanitarian response plans suggests that such plans are already being used in this way, with the total energy and environmental funding requirements listed in current response plans estimated at $300 million for 2021. Assuming a similar level of investment would be needed for refugees not covered in existing response plans, scaling this figure to cover all refugee populations globally would mean an investment of over $1 billion for 2021. And assuming similar funding needs would also be required in the coming years, a reasonable estimate is that the cost of refugee energy and environmental needs across the world will amount to more than $10 billion between 2022 and 2030.
At the country level, Jordan has the longest-running experience with response and coordination processes; and the response plan format has proved effective, enabling the government to shape support to meet national priorities that included addressing energy. In Uganda, similarly, the response plan format has provided another important avenue for fundraising on the carefully defined energy and environment agenda that has been crafted as part of the transition to the SERP. But the format has failed to have the same impact in other countries discussed in this paper. For example, Ethiopia’s OCHA-led Humanitarian Response Plan makes no real place for energy or environmental issues; and this sits awkwardly alongside UNHCR’s Country Response Plans for 2020–21 and 2022, which do set out an energy and environmental agenda. In Rwanda, as well as Ethiopia, humanitarian organizations have struggled to meet the extremely ambitious targets set out for energy and the environment. In these cases, there seems to be little correlation between the activities planned and the budgets proposed. Future response plans could be improved with a more rigorous costing of specific activities, as well as more realistic ambitions. Tanzania’s Energy and Environment Plan (as contained within the overall response plan) focused heavily on the distribution of stoves and afforestation programmes to reduce forest loss in the regions around the camps. These interventions are important and necessary, and align strongly with government ambitions, but as a package they are unlikely to be truly transformative, with little focus on bringing power to the camps or surrounding host communities.
Enabling private sector participation and crowding-in of innovation actors
There are precious few examples of true private sector participation in the humanitarian energy sector, though where they exist the state has had an indirect influence in enabling partnerships.
In Uganda, although progress on the ground remains slow, the government has created an overall policy environment that is conducive to private sector humanitarian energy project delivery. In this context, a range of novel and exciting projects and partnerships – such as the Smart Communities Coalition – have chosen to use Uganda as a ‘testing ground’ for new approaches. The country still faces a daunting array of challenges – with widespread poverty and developmental problems, a huge need for investment in infrastructure and basic facilities (particularly in the historically marginalized north), and one of the largest refugee populations in the world. But the approach taken in this context – to grant refugees rights and freedoms, and to encourage cooperative models for humanitarian delivery – seems to have succeeded in the ‘crowding-in’ of new ideas, approaches and suppliers, as highlighted in the Uganda case study. A key challenge remains to turn pilot schemes and short-term grant-funded activities into longer-term, more sustainable action. But the range of activity on the ground suggests progress and a move towards more durable solutions – particularly as host communities are taken account of in almost all refugee-focused energy interventions.
In Rwanda, there is evidence of an evolving government appetite for private sector engagement in refugee settings, although programmes tend to be more tightly controlled and subject to governance structures requiring UNHCR endorsement or collaboration. In Ethiopia, Tanzania and Jordan, while research reveals latent market demand for clean energy products and services among displaced communities, there has been less government-level attention to encouraging market-based solutions that might promote longer-term sustainability of new technology options.
Humanitarian technical working groups and local coordination
In some settings, attempts to improve the coordination and effectiveness of energy interventions have included setting up working groups. As a low-cost initiative that can be deployed quickly and easily, such groups have proved popular, and all of the case studies presented in this paper have a mechanism that serves this function: take for example the Technical Working Group on Energy and Environment in Uganda, or the Energy and Environment Working Group in Tanzania. For project developers or energy businesses, groups of this kind are often the key entry point to understanding the novel barriers, challenges and regulations for energy and environmental interventions in humanitarian settings.
In all of the case studies, working groups have also included government representatives. In Uganda, for example, the group has been co-led by the Office of the Prime Minister, UNHCR and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. Government representation has helped to achieve high-level buy-in for energy projects in Uganda, partly because it signals some measure of stability for refugee populations and makes clear what the government needs, thus providing the framework under which projects can be packaged, and partly because it provides an open channel of communication. In Uganda, the group has helped to raise the profile of humanitarian energy projects in the country, and it has laid the groundwork for the SERP (discussed in the case study). Tanzania’s stakeholders similarly describe the addition of dedicated new field officers from government as a positive step that has helped camp commanders to make informed decisions about energy issues.
Jordan’s coordination landscape is even more complex, but the Energy Taskforce (which will now be covered by the Public Services Taskforce) has functioned effectively in setting the priorities for the JRP in energy. It has enabled key ministry input and has brought together some of the main humanitarian actors engaging with energy to try to avoid duplication. On the ground, a number of more specific committees and working groups have helped to serve the needs of particular projects in Jordan.
National processes and regulations
Host governments have a range of context-specific processes that determine how energy projects in humanitarian settings will be approved, regulated and evaluated. In some cases, these processes can be relatively simple to navigate, while in others a complex array of negotiations – and diplomatic skills – are needed to bring projects to fruition.
In the project to put a solar water heating system in Al-Mafraq public hospital to improve conditions for both Jordanians and Syrians, there was a six-month delay while approvals were sought from five separate government ministries.
In Jordan, the JRP provides a formalized process for approvals, beginning with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, which oversees the JRP and which will then coordinate with the relevant ministry and the JREEEF for further approvals. The implementation of two solar plants at the main refugee camps has proved successful, reducing bills for UNHCR and establishing a piece of legacy infrastructure that helps with Jordan’s renewable energy targets. These projects benefited from a law and clear regulation on solar and grid connection (the 2012 Renewable and Energy Efficiency Law). However, lengthy government approvals did delay implementation and increase costs. In the case of the Azraq solar plant, for example, where ownership sat with UNHCR, approval for the connection delayed the project by 18 months as a number of other ministries needed to sign off on the project. However, ownership can make a difference. In the case of the KfW-funded Zaatari solar plant, where ownership sat with the Ministry of Energy, approvals were streamlined and costs kept down. Smaller, novel projects on public infrastructure may by their nature even require more levels of approval. For example, in the project to put a solar water heating system in Al-Mafraq public hospital to improve conditions for both Jordanians and Syrians, there was a six-month delay while approvals were sought from five separate government ministries.
In Uganda, approvals of mini-grids is the purview of the Rural Electrification Agency based on established master plans. On approval, developers would then seek licences from the Electrical Regulatory Authority, which would in turn set the tariff for the utility. The process has been successfully navigated in refugee contexts by several developers that have either been involved in previous projects throughout the country or have made themselves fully aware of the requirements and followed up accordingly. Ad hoc humanitarian projects that are not anchored in the institutional processes and designed at commensurate scale have and will continue to face sustainability challenges. Successful projects are those where approval by the relevant agencies and regulators precedes funding, and where development partners have worked closely with government to design the projects before calling for proposals or announcing grants.
The success and sustainability of energy access projects also depends on the quality of the technologies accessed. Poor quality products, as well as being ineffective and costly, can be unsafe and can damage user confidence in energy technologies whether for cooking, lighting or power. The logical mitigation for these challenges is to follow recognized international or national standards. In the case of household solar products, adherence to VeraSol (formerly Lighting Global) is a familiar and widely accessible option. However, standards for cookstoves are less straightforward, and this can introduce challenges in humanitarian contexts where low funding levels mean that significant numbers of the people who are dependent on biomass for cooking cannot be reached. In Uganda, in an attempt to regulate the vast array of cookstoves intended to reduce wood fuel consumption and increase safety in and beyond refugee settlements, the Uganda Bureau of Standards developed and published standards for cookstoves and declared that all implementing partners should adhere to those standards when providing improved cookstoves in refugee settlements. The first challenge was a lack of clarity on whether this standard would apply to handmade stoves, and a second challenge was that a large majority of stoves failed to meet the standard. The lack of market availability of qualifying stoves created both confusion and incongruence in a sector where compliance was mandatory but largely unachievable.
