Access to (Green) Energy in Rural Africa

With the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the international community set itself the goal of ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy  (SDG 7)(UN, 2015). The goal includes a significant increase in the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. This supports a transformation to low-carbon development in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) has set out to "reduce energy poverty in partner countries and provide affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to households, social institutions and businesses, among others" (BMZ, 2021).

To achieve rapid results in the area of intervention "’Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency", alongside the initiative area "Green Hydrogen and Power-to-X Products", the BMZ is also relying above all on the "Green People's Energy for Africa” initiative and the global multi-donor partnership “Energising Development” (EnDev). ”The Green People´s Energy for Africa” supports partner countries  in "developing and expanding renewables and their productive [...] use by actively involving citizens, municipalities, cooperatives and private investors" (BMZ, 2021).

The overall goal of the evaluation is to assess the contribution by German development cooperation to (green) energy access in rural Africa. The OECD DAC evaluation criteria are applied. The findings will generate conclusions and recommendations for German development cooperation. The purpose is learning and accountability.  Specifically, the evaluation will generate helpful insights for the review of the core area strategy "Responsibility for our planet – climate and energy". It will also recommend pilot approaches from the "Green People's Energy for Africa" initiative to improve future portfolio design and programming. As the initiative will end in September 2023, the evaluation will draw timely conclusions to support learning and accountability.

The evaluation is case-study based. Primary data are collected in Benin, Uganda and Senegal. The focus is on target groups of productive energy use. These are primarily small rural enterprises engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry and the processing of agricultural produce, as well as owners of restaurants and small shops. Focus group discussions are conducted with such small rural enterprises in all three countries. These are supplemented with quantitative surveys in Benin and Senegal. A control group that did not benefit from the German development cooperation is also surveyed. In Senegal specifically,  village leaders and operators of mini-grids are surveyed on the functioning and use of these mini-grids for income-generating activities.

The case studies are incorporated into cross-case analyses of relevant approaches to energy access that have been implemented in Africa in recent years by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. For this purpose, qualitative content analyses of project documents are conducted. Furthermore, data on the allocation of development cooperation funds in the energy sector (disaggregated by approach, country and theme) are subjected to a quantitative portfolio analysis. All data collection and analyses are triangulated by interviews with stakeholders in German development cooperation, partners in the partner countries and further experts.