Background

The Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) was launched in August 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg as one of the “Type II” partnerships. The GVEP seeks to reduce poverty and enhance economic and social development through the accelerated provision of modern energy services to those unserved or underserved.  GVEP aims to do this by developing the analysis, advocacy tools, means of knowledge networking, and partnership strategies needed to support country and regional cooperation on new approaches to deliver energy services designed to meet the needs of the poor and, therefore, to support sustainable development.  Ghana signed on as GVEP partner in October 2002 at the GVEP Ministerial meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ghana was represented at the meeting by a cross-sectoral delegation led by the Minister of Energy.

As a follow-up to the Addis Ababa meeting, a GVEP workshop was held at Akosombo, in August 2003, which was funded by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the United States. The purpose of the Akosombo workshop was to create a forum to identify the energy interventions required to implement activities developed to address the problems in the six priority sectors – health, education, water and sanitation, agriculture, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and environment – as outlined in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) document. A total of 21 delegates drawn mostly from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and NGOs participated in the Akosombo workshop. The main output of the workshop was a draft Action Plan that sought to outline possible energy interventions that could be used to enhance specific poverty alleviation projects in the priority sectors as outlined in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Although the deliberations at the workshop had focussed on the six priority sector enumerated above, two other areas – the household and communication sectors – were later identified as very important and added to the list.

Again although some progress was made at the Akosombo Workshop in terms of presenting the overall sector initiatives that have been outlined in the GPRS, information on project specificities were lacking in the draft document.  Hence the inability of the workshop to adequately outline energy interventions and technology options and match them to projects as earlier intended. To help plug this dearth in detail and also to subject the draft plan to a broader stakeholder consultations, the Ministry of Energy, with KITE as the facilitator, submitted a proposal to the GVEP Secretariat to engage in a series of stakeholder consultations to finalise the GVEP Action Plan for Ghana. The project has been approved and the Ministry of Energy has signed an agreement with the UNDP to support the finalisation of the Energy for Poverty Reduction Action Plan for Ghana.

Objectives and Outputs

The objective of this project is to complete the Energy for Poverty Reduction Action Plan for Ghana.  As part of the project, the following information on each identified priority sector will be gathered:

• Priority projects/programs as defined by the GPRS for the next 10 years with a focus on the next five years
• An outline of the energy interventions required for the identified projects/programs
• The projects and programs for which funding has been secured and from whom
• The funding gaps for specific projects/programs

The main output of the project will be an “Energy for Poverty Reduction Action Plan” for Ghana. The Action Plan will provide stakeholders with a picture of the selected sectors with respect to their poverty reduction strategy programmes, who is doing what and what the outstanding needs are. Another key deliverable of the project will be the preparation of 10 ready-to-be-implemented project documents. Armed with this information the GVEP and other similar initiatives and/or donors will then be in a position to either fund or facilitate funding for various components of the plan.

In addition to preparing the Action Plan the following will also be carried out:

• Establishment of an online database for energy programs and activities in Ghana
• Establishement of a Monitoring and Evaluation framework for the Energy for Poverty Reduction Action Plan
• Development of an implementation plan for the establishment of 100 Sustainable Communities/Villages using 3 carefully identified energy interventions.
• Establish a multi-donor forum for the Energy Sector

Management and Timeline

Management of this project shall be by National Execution (NEX), which is the modality through which most UNDP-supported programmes and projects are executed.  Under this modality the implementation shall be guided by a Steering Committee the final composition of which is to be agreed at the Kick-off meeting of all stakeholders. The project implementation will be the responsibility of KITE as the Implementing Agency under the authority of the Executing Agency, the Ministry of Energy and in consultation with the Coordinating Agency, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. The Executing Agency shall be responsible for supervising the Implementing Agency, and the overall planning & management of the Project, its activities, reporting, accounting, monitoring and evaluation.  The Implementing Agency, KITE, shall be accountable to the Executing Agency for quality, timeliness and effectiveness of the project activities it carries out, as well as use of project funds. The project is to be implemented over a 12 month period at a total cost of US$ 150,000, 10% of which would be paid to UNDP-Ghana for providing general management support (GMS) to the project.