Evidence submission by Newcastle University and Sightsavers
Newcastle University: Graham Long (corresponding author - graham.long@ncl.ac.uk), Joe Gartland, Mirren Stone, Marwan Tafida
Sightsavers: Andrew Griffiths, Hannah Loryman
This evidence submission draws on ongoing research by Newcastle University and Sightsavers to reflect on the inclusion of “left behind” populations in energy-focused UK aid projects.
The evidence has two main parts: the first situates community energy-focused overseas aid in the context of the SDGs and the UK’s international development strategy, especially given recently announced cuts. Community energy is a timely and important theme given the UK’s stated emphasis on local leadership and partnership. Sitting at a vital intersection of climate and SDG agendas, climate aid directed to community energy - expected to survive the ODA cuts - has the potential to contribute to multiple SDG targets. However, the definition of community energy is contested, and sensitive to questions around models of local participation and leadership. In terms of the UK’s commitment to the SDGs and the principle of “leave no one behind”, one key issue is who is included in community energy projects, and to what extent.
The second part addresses this question of inclusion by presenting the rationale, methodology and key findings from our pilot research on inclusion in climate-focused aid projects, with a special emphasis on the FCDO-funded, energy-oriented projects within our pilot sample. Our methodology offers a working model for understanding and assessing inclusion of “left behind” populations. That work - though only in the pilot phase, and subject to further verification - offers three key findings:
● Support for the observation of key ‘elasticities’ in the definition of community energy - e.g. around the involvement of the private sector, and the model of local ownership and leadership
● Beyond consideration of women and gender, the energy projects examined in the pilot sample do not generally address other “left behind” populations such as people with disabilities, children and youth, ethnic minorities, migrants, and indigenous peoples – that is, the breadth of inclusion is sharply limited.
● The quality or depth of inclusion is also limited and uneven. Beyond recognition in data-gathering, we find little mention of participation for “left behind” populations in planning, decision–making, implementation or review of these projects.
Together, these initial findings pose an important challenge: whether the UK’s climate-focused aid activity - notably, for this inquiry, around energy and community energy - is failing vulnerable and marginalised groups.
● This inquiry takes place in the context of the UK’s recently announced ODA cuts, and the Foreign Secretary’s call for “a deeper and more meaningful conversation about western development” generally.[1] It seems clear that the cuts will shrink the UK’s overall positive impact on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) despite the UK’s “unwavering commitment”.[2]
● As there will be less UK activity, the remaining funded activities - expected to be focused on climate and especially poor and fragile states[3] - become more important as vehicles for UK contribution to the SDGs.
● This makes the inquiry especially important and timely. ODA around climate funding, including renewable, inclusive and resilient energy systems, will acquire more importance as a potential vehicle for delivery of wider aid objectives.
● Community energy lies at the intersection of the SDGs - SDG 7 - and the Paris Agreement. Community energy seems an area that has potential to deliver benefit across other SDGs (or, if these benefits are not realised, and synergies and coherence not addressed, potentially undercut them)
● The cuts clearly put the continued commitment of the UK to “leave no one behind”[4] at risk. As budgets shrink, projects will face pressure to narrow their focus in the face of practical constraints. Hence, consideration needs to be given to how “leave no one behind” should be realised in the context of climate change projects, including locally led energy projects.
● In the absence of a new international development strategy, the 2023 International Development White Paper[5] is salient here as the most recent public, strategic discussion of the UK’s aid strategy. Amid the change in government and the funding cuts, it is clear that this is no longer a document that will direct UK activity, but it still represents an important collation of the UK’s aid priorities and strategies.
● The principle of local leadership is presented as a new approach throughout the 2023 White Paper - though our past analysis finds little evidence that the White Paper translated this into specific and measurable commitments.[6] Locally-led, community energy projects are clearly in line with this direction of travel.
● In terms of the SDGs, we found that despite a strong alignment with the SDG on global partnership (SDG 17) in terms of overall volume of commitments, the 2023 White Paper foreshadows the current shift away from a ‘traditional’ development agenda (e.g. SDGs around poverty, hunger, education, health) with the most measurable and funded commitments related to climate.[7]
● Though the White Paper reaffirms the commitment to “leave no one behind”, our analysis finds little by way of specific policies to implement this commitment, with only a relatively small set of “left behind” populations considered in the document.
● Energy, including community energy, is referenced in relatively few commitments in the White Paper – indicating that this theme was not prominent in the picture of UK activity presented there in 2023. This might, in turn, prompt questions around relevant experience and institutional knowledge within the Government and potential project lead organisations.
● More generally, there is a clear risk that a focus on climate and energy - done narrowly, without considering coherence with wider objectives - might undermine a global sustainable development partnership aimed at realisation of all the SDGs in a way that “leaves no one behind”
● Understandings of community energy are diverse and contested. For example, the terms of reference for this inquiry discuss “generation and governance” suggesting local supply- and demand-side activity around generation, distribution, management and consumption is in-scope. Terms such as community leadership, ownership, finance and benefit are widely used around community energy but carry importantly different meanings. Community energy can be more formal or informal, and more collective or individual; it can be inclusive of private sector and national government, or discussed as a movement in opposition to these forces.[8]
● It is not the aim of this evidence submission to focus on the ‘elasticity’ of the idea of community energy. Our focus here is on one particular question for community energy-related development projects: the extent and quality of inclusion for disadvantaged populations in such projects. That is, to what extent do these projects fulfil the UK and SDG commitment to “leave no one behind”?
● Though interest in community energy is growing, numbers of community energy-related development projects appear relatively small. As a crude metric, a search of D-Portal (the global repository of IATI data for development projects) finds 35293 total activities related to “energy”, but only 2097 matches for “community energy”, 320 matches for “decentralised energy” (with both “s” and “z” spelling), and 4092 matches for “local energy”. Looking at UK projects, a search of the UK’s Development Tracker finds 40 matches for “community energy” FCDO projects (again, a crude metric).[9]
● Community energy has potential to advance more than just SDG 7’s agenda around renewable, affordable energy, and infrastructure. Energy is closely coupled to other SDGs, e.g. on agriculture (SDG 2), water (SDG 6), infrastructure (SDG 9), economy (SDG 8) and sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12). But inclusive community energy would also contribute to targets on governance in SDG 16 and SDG 11, and to targets on equality in SDG 10 and SDG 5, as well as the pledge to “leave no one behind”.
● Reflecting this wider agenda, there is an urgent need for study of local leadership and inclusion in energy (and more broadly, climate) projects. There is potential for advancing the SDGs in all these respects - but also the risk of missing these opportunities, or of community energy being undercut through policy incoherence. In terms of the focus for this paper, if “community energy” fails to address the marginalisation and disadvantage of particular populations, it has the potential to perpetuate and exacerbate exclusion.
● Our current research addresses the presence or absence of different “left behind” populations across climate projects, including energy projects. It tests for inclusive community leadership through an emphasis on participation in different stages of project design and implementation.
● It allows us to gauge the depth of inclusion – whether this is reflected only in ‘lip service’ or in meaningful involvement throughout a project lifecycle; and the breadth of inclusion – which populations are addressed (or not) in the plans, processes and outcomes.
● We are currently piloting our methodology on a range of UK and World Bank climate change-oriented projects. This puts us in a position to share some very early findings around these projects generally, but also a subset of energy-focused projects.
One important need addressed by our work is to develop an account of what good practice on inclusion looks like in climate-oriented projects, and how this manifests in the planning and reporting of projects. Our methodology sets out to review core documents of development projects, notably business cases, annual and final reports. Our working model aims to assess inclusion by a combined evaluation that analyses a set of elements:
Definitions of community energy are elastic, and the principle of “leaving no one behind” is contested. Hence, development of a framework for evaluating what this principle means in the context of climate-oriented development projects - including ones focused on community energy - is an important step.
Eight FCDO funded projects concerned with energy in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation were in our initial pilot phase, representing projects in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, ranging in size from £10m - £340m in budget. Here we identify three early findings from this small sample, all to be confirmed in future work, with relevance for this inquiry:
(1) Local and community ownership and leadership largely absent
All of those projects identified local communities as key beneficiaries (and so, in the broadest sense, might be thought of as “community energy” projects). However, only two committed to local community co-leadership, though others recognised local communities as having roles to play in addressing climate change more widely. Compared to the involvement of local communities, market-based and government partners were more prominent.
This reflects questions of definitions around decentralised community energy and ambiguities around the involvement of the private sector and the nature of community control - e.g. exercised more directly as individual ‘prosumers’, or less directly through existing systems of local government.
(2) Uneven breadth of inclusion for different disadvantaged populations
In terms of the breadth of “left behind” populations identified and included, our overall finding is that almost all projects identify and address women as a disadvantaged population, and many reflect their focus on poorer populations through targeted programmes and monitoring by these beneficiaries.
However, beyond top-line mentions, few projects pay detailed attention to people with disabilities (2 projects), children and youth (1 project), and ethnic minorities (1 project). Other disadvantaged populations, including indigenous peoples and migrants/displaced persons, are not found to be addressed at all.
This finding - though not unexpected - indicates that the implementation of “leave no one behind” in these climate- and energy-focused projects itself “leaves behind” certain disadvantaged populations. Clearly, if this finding was reflected across community energy projects, it could call into question how inclusive the ‘community’ at issue was. This also highlights potential gaps in implementation of relevant FCDO policies, such as the Disability Inclusion and Rights Strategy, and should prompt further evaluation of how this strategy is implemented across the portfolio.
(3) Inclusion across these projects generally goes no further than data-gathering
Generally, commitments to gather data around disadvantage, and efforts to track outcomes for certain populations (as noted above, especially women) are common amongst the pilot sample. However, only a few projects go beyond that to participation by these populations via inclusion in governance, implementation and monitoring.
One project - Climate Adaptation Water and Energy Infrastructure Programme (CAWEP) Zimbabwe[10] - takes an explicit “leave no one behind” approach and accords a range of populations (women, the rural poor, and people with disabilities) participation in project design and structure, implementation, and review and monitoring. This comprehensive approach, however, is unique amongst the projects we have reviewed in the pilot sample.
This finding indicates limited ambition in terms of the depth of inclusion - projects are not generally aiming to establish mechanisms for participation and leadership by ‘left behind’ populations.
Taken together, our early findings indicate an important challenge to ‘community energy’ aid projects. If such projects leave behind disadvantaged and marginalised populations, they risk damaging the UK’s contribution to the SDGs and undercutting the UK’s commitments.
Given the UK aid context, more meaningful discussion of how to “leave no one” behind in climate- and energy-focused projects – discussion that involves these populations themselves and establishes what best practice looks like - is an urgent area for further action and scrutiny.
[1] Foreign Secretary – House of Lords transcript
[3] “We will still be there on climate and we will still try and support the poorest and the most fragile states” Foreign Secretary - House of Lords transcript
[4] In a recent formulation: “The UK chooses to stand on the side of ambition, rights and the future we all committed to in 2015 when we pledged to leave no one behind.” UK statement at the 58th session of the Commission on Population and Development
[5] International development in a contested world
[6] The UK development agenda, the White Paper, and the SDGs, p6
[7] The UK development agenda, the White Paper, and the SDGs, p3-4
[8] For an overview of some of these issues of definition, see, e.g., An exploration of the boundaries of ‘community’ in community renewable energy projects; Community energy: Entanglements of community, state, and private sector