World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) announce partnership to accelerate energy access and decarbonization

Sharm El Sheikh | November 15, 2022: Today, at COP 27, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) announced support of USD 50 million for the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) to accelerate energy access and the transition to clean energy in developing countries.

The new partnership will enable ESMAP to boost its programs aimed at achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7: universal access to reliable, sustainable energy by 2030. It will also support ESMAP and GEAPP’s aligned priority of supporting developing countries in the decarbonization of their energy sectors.

“More than 733 million people still have no access to electricity,” said Gabriela Elizondo Azuela, ESMAP Manager. “Solutions exist to bring clean and affordable energy to the most remote and vulnerable regions of the world, but recent crises have slowed down efforts to deploy them. We are happy to partner with GEAPP on this important agenda, which is critical both for poverty reduction and tackling climate change.”

“In just a year from our launch at COP26, working together with Alliance partners including the World Bank and ESMAP, GEAPP is developing a tailored response to each of our partner country’s energy access and transition challenges,” said GEAPP CEO Simon Harford. “This new partnership with ESMAP will play a catalytic role in our efforts to scale clean energy projects with communities most in need of reliable electricity, sparking economic growth, innovation, and sustainable livelihoods.”

GEAPP’s funding is in support of projects and programs in shared priority markets both institutions believe have a high potential to be transformative at the country level and have a clear path to scaling up. Projects will include the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants and repurposing from coal to clean energy such as the Komati Power Station in South Africa; the deployment of distributed renewable energy for the electrification of local industry, households, health centers, and schools, as well as the enhancement of productive uses of energy, such as the Electricity Access Scale up Project (EASP) in Uganda.

The partners will be closely monitoring and evaluating project impacts, adjusting investments accordingly, and applying learnings across projects throughout the collaboration.

About the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)

ESMAP is a partnership between the World Bank  and 24 partners to help low and middle-income countries reduce poverty and boost growth through sustainable energy solutions. ESMAP is the oldest and largest Trust Fund at the World Bank dedicated to energy and its analytical and advisory services are fully integrated within the World Bank’s country financing and policy dialogue in the energy sector. Through the World Bank Group (WBG), ESMAP works to accelerate the energy transition required to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. It helps to shape WBG strategies and programs to achieve the WBG Climate Change Action Plan targets.

About the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP)
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is an alliance of philanthropy, entrepreneurs, governments in emerging and developed economies, and technology, policy, and financing partners. Our common mission is to support developing countries’ shift to a clean energy, pro-growth model that ensures universal energy access and unlocks a new era of inclusive economic growth, while enabling the global community to meet critical climate goals during the next decade. In doing so, as an Alliance we aim to enable 150 million sustainable livelihoods, reduce 4 gigatons of future carbon emissions, and expand clean energy access to one billion people. With philanthropic partners IKEA Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund, GEAPP works to build the enabling environment, capacity, and market conditions for private sector solutions, catalyze new business models through innovation and entrepreneurship, and deploy high-risk capital to encourage private sector solutions, and assist just transition solutions. For more information, please visit www.energyalliance.org and follow us on Twitter at @EnergyAlliance.

Media Contacts:

Lucie Blyth
ESMAP
lblyth1@worldbankgroup.org
+1 202 468 6434

Eric Gay
GEAPP
eric.gay@energyalliance.org
+1 917 912 6190