Catania, 12 March 2018 - ARE is pleased to announce that Vivian Vendeirinho (RVE.SOL) was elected as new ARE President until 2019 at ARE's last Annual General Meeting (AGM). We would like to thank leaving President Ernesto Macias (Solarwatt) and Board Members Caroline Nijland (FRES), Anthony Ighodaro (KXN Nigeria), Karl Kolmsee (Smart Hydro Power) and Michael Wollny (Wollny Consulting) for their commitment and dedication to set up ARE 12 years ago and bringing it to where it is today.

We welcome new incoming Board Members:

  • Emily McAteer, CEO & co-Founder, Odyssey Energy Solutions
  • Prosper Magali, Director of Projects & Business, Ensol Limited
  • Rebecca Symington, Executive Director, Mlinda Charitable Trust
  • Sukla Chandra, Global Product Leader – Hybrid Distributed Power, GE Power

Vivian Vendeirinho, ARE’s new President: “ARE works in the framework built by the SDG7 in order to support sustainable development for rural communities. ARE’s Membership has developed incredibly in the last 10 years, reaching over 150 Members by end of last year – a clear statement that the market has reached a tipping point. Now, we want to focus on initiating more Member partnerships to validate the sector and demonstrate its scalability. This will help provide real added value for our Members: creating direct business opportunities in the energy access space.”

The new ARE Strategy (2018-2022) was presented to Members at the AGM, whereby four workstreams have been identified:

  1. Global Voice – “speaking as one cohesive team” (lead: Aaron Leopold)
  2. Global association acting locally – “global partnerships working locally” (lead: Vivian Vendeirinho)
  3. Powerful partnerships – “strength in numbers and common learning” (lead: Katarina Uherova Hasbani)
  4. Fundraising – ”leveraging our member base to unlocking capital” (lead: Pablo Astorga)