ARE at COP26 Recap
4 Nov – Launch of CORE: Cornerstone of Rural Electrification
ARE, ICA, IRENA, SEforALL, UNEP and UNIDO launched the Cornerstone of Rural Electrification Initiative (CORE) to address the immense capacity building and technical assistance needs to support the sustainable development of DRE systems worldwide.
The solution to the sustainability challenge lies with the skills of the local workforce, which must be strengthened to deal with the monumental increase in decentralised electrification in the years to come. A recent survey with DRE industry players indicated that more than 70% of companies have difficulties in finding skilled local field staff.
With this in mind, CORE works with partners on the following avenues of support:
- Certified CORE Academy trainings for DRE practitioners (directly or through training of trainers)
- Development of regional/national training and certification frameworks for DRE practitioners together with universities, training institutions, governments, as well as regional and national partner organisations
- Flexible, on-demand technical assistance and capacity building activities for governments, DRE practitioners, training institutions, universities and rural and peri-urban entrepreneurs
- An open-source knowledge platform, which gathers existing technical training materials and tools for the benefit of the DRE community
9 Nov – Financing Sustainable Energy Access: Building Resilient and Net-zero Local Economies
Access to clean and reliable electricity is imperative to advance the just transition to net-zero local economies, catalyse socioeconomic development and green job creation, climate change adaptation and COVID-19 recovery.
In the framework of COP26, ARE, GET.invest and the European Commission with the support of ElectriFI organised a session highlighting the impact of EU financial mechanisms for private companies to accelerate rural electrification efforts, with testimonials from OnePower, ENGIE Energy Access and Bboxx. The session brought together over 120 participants.
9 Nov – ARE Reception
ARE organised an evening reception in Brussels to welcome representatives from the ARE Membership, the European Commission, EDFI ElectriFI, Enabel and GET.invest to exchange and do business.
Great catching up with ARE Members Africa GreenTec, Azelio, ENGIE, FlexGrid and RES4Africa Foundation!
12 Nov – Launch of CLEANaction: Coalition Linking Energy And Nature for action
A new coalition was announced with the aim to ensure that the impacts on nature are considered during the global energy transition. The Coalition Linking Energy And Nature for action (CLEANaction), aims to drive short-term action and highlight the need for new renewable energy generation projects to be carefully assessed for their impacts on biodiversity, allowing the options that are the least damaging to nature to be prioritised.
Founding members of the coalition are ARE, Birdlife International, ICLEI-Cities Biodiversity Center, IRENA, TNC and WWF. The coalition seeks to bring together varied organisations to initiate immediate action that will ensure greater integration of nature into energy planning and implementation.