To achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and meet the climate targets set by the Paris Agreement, clean, affordable, and renewable energy must be made accessible to the 1.1 billion people around the globe who lack access to electricity. The potential benefits are enormous: a clean energy economy that provides affordable, reliable, and safe energy to all has the potential to not only transform climate and development, but also to deliver major advances in public health, gender equity, education, and more.

Interested in reading more on energy? Visit this selection on Giving Compass.

Current investment incentives and momentum, however, strongly favor the kinds of large-scale, centralized energy projects that will bypass the great majority of those living without energy access: the rural poor. The global community faces three critical challenges in bringing clean, affordable, renewable energy to the 1.1 billion who do not have it: implementation of policies that support the development of distributed energy, financing that makes it possible to address this problem at scale, and the cultivation of in-country human capital necessary to install and maintain these systems. Civil society leaders are uniquely positioned to bridge this disconnect and address these challenges and needs. Moreover, mission investors can take risks, build the field, and pave the way for an influx of private sector capital.

Finally, it is vital that the collective efforts to bring clean, affordable, renewable energy to the rural poor are well coordinated. The challenges are too great, and the forces advancing a fossil fuel–based solution too strong for us not to be working as a community in the most strategic way possible.

This report provides a broad assessment of the current clean energy access landscape and identifies key
existing initiatives as well as critical gaps in the field. We also recommend preliminary near-term
investment opportunities for civil society organizations and mission investors that are interested in
advancing the needs of the historically marginalized.

Read the source article at arabellaadvisors.com