Why SAMSET Phase 1 Has Been Unusual

As the end of Phase 1 of SAMSET passes, Simon Batchelor reflects on the important lessons he has learned from the programme of work.

I have worked in development for more than 30 years.  Grey hair and aching joints mean that I have experienced some of the highs and lows of development work.  Those times when a programmes contribution to development is washed away by a change in government, or times when simple ideas have grown to become policy and lift many off the poverty line.  Times when I have worked with governments and times when I have sat with communities, lived with the people.

And yet to me SAMSET brought new insight.  I would like to tell you why.

Municipality authorities – strange as it may seem, this was a level of governance that had passed me by in my career.  Admittedly I worked a lot in rural areas.  Back in the eighties when I started, everyone described Africa as dependent on agriculture, and rural livelihood improvements were the key.  So I worked with ‘district’ authorities but not so much with municipalities.  Now Africa has changed and will continue to change rapidly.  Urban environments are the key challenge.  Creating a space for urban based livelihoods, with all the complexity of transport systems and energy consumption.  To me the municipal partners (in Awutu Sena East and Ga East Ghana; Jinja and Kasese Uganda, and Polokwane and Cape Town South Africa), have been a delight to work with.  And consistent – they attend meetings and the same people attend meetings!  How many times have I spent in my career developing a relationship with a government official only for them to be moved into a different ministry?  And they take action – seeing some easy wins they have the authority to change building regulations or advice, and to purchase clean energy street furniture.  There are indeed capacity challenges within municipalities, and indeed all the country wide problems of corruption are also within their processes; but when I consider some of the people I have worked with over the years, I say that our municipal partners were a delight to work with and I think we managed to achieve a great deal as a research project.

30 year time horizons – it is a sad reality of the development sector that people work in three or five year projects.  Even large national programmes still set unrealistic targets in unrealistically short time spans.  In SAMSET we have worked with municipalities to collect data, model it for population growth over 30 to 50 years, and then discussed the future.  (For example Ga East LEAP Modelling Technical Report (ERC) (2017) and Jinja LEAP Modelling Technical Report (May 2017) (ERC).  Our partners have considered what action they needed to take now to do something other than business as usual and to generate different futures for their cities.  To some people the idea of thinking 50 years into the future is difficult.  They say the pace of change of technology is such that we cannot know what it might look like.  And yet at the same time others will argue that we have to.  That the longer term visionaries are the ones who take small steps now which shape that technological change and address the environmental concerns (eg. Awutu Senya East Municipality Energy Futures Report 2015 (October 2015) (UoGhana)).  It is true that self driving cars may change the shape of our cities.  But it is also true that most cities in Africa will double in size within 10 years (due to population growth and inward migration).  In SAMSET the municipality partners ‘stepped up to the plate’ (a baseball metaphor), and took a swing at looking at the future and taking action for the longer term future.  For me this stood in contrast from so much experience of short term projects.

Evidence based decision making – has become a common phrase and yet in reality there is little actual data and what there is is rarely used.  That’s why SAMSET was encouraging in my eyes.  It started with data gathering.  Not an easy task – to get granular data for a municipality means going and measuring it in partnership with the municipality.  National statistics are too large too lumpy to enable municipal authorities to make sensible decisions for their own location.  They tend to rely on feedback from citizens and staff to decide what to do.  So to actually go and get the right data for making decisions was to me a great step forward.

There are probably other things that have made SAMSET noticeable in my eyes, but these are the three that come to mind as I sit to write this.  If all my future projects had a sensible long term horizon, a level of governance with consistency in its personnel and an ability to reflect and act, and was willing to gather the right evidence in order to make a sensible decision – I would be happy.

SDG 7 and SE4All: The role of Sub-Saharan Local Governments in Supporting Sustainable Energy Goals

This blog explores the role of Sub-Saharan African local governments can play in supporting the SDG energy-related goals and SE4All goals.  It suggests that they play a key role in this area given that they are often at the forefront of service delivery and end-user interaction. Yet overall the capacity and resource needs of local governments on the sub-continent remain under-prioritised by national governments, international development aid agendas, and the global research community.

The goals of SDG7 and SE4All are closely aligned, but there are also other SDG goals that are relevant to sustainable urban energy.  The SDG7 targets are:

• By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services
• By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
• By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency
• By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology
• By 2030, expand infrastructure and upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all

In addition, relevant goals from SDG11 (sustainable cities) include access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems, enhancing the capacity for integrated and sustainable human settlement planning, and addressing the impact of poor air quality and municipal waste. All of these are closely linked to sustainable energy futures.

Many Sub-Saharan African countries have, or intend to develop, plans whereby the SDG7 and SE4All goals can be pursued.  For example both Ghana and Uganda have such plans (Ghana SE4All Action Plan 2012, Uganda SE4All Action Agenda 2015), although it is notable that such key energy planning documents do not mention the transport sector – a major and fast growing energy consumer and emissions contributor. South Africa does not appear to have specific SE4All planning documents, although many initiatives exist in the country which are in pursuit of these objectives.

Numerous important sustainable energy initiatives are substantially linked to, or dependent on, national processes and mandates, or are best handled at a centralized national level (e.g. national power grid capacity upgrading, or changing regulatory frameworks around local generation).  Nevertheless, much lies within the mandate or direct influence of local governments, and globally there is an increasing emphasis on local players taking a stronger role in sustainable energy issues, as has been reflected at the recent COP gatherings in Paris and Marakesh.  In this regard, the work of the SAMSET project (Supporting sub-Saharan African Municipalities with Sustainable Energy Transitions) indicates that local governments on the sub-continent, and local research organisations, can play an important role in the following areas.

Local facilitation of household energy programmes which are driven by national or other players, such as cookstove, efficient appliance and electrification programmes: this includes collecting and providing information and data on needs and opportunities in local area; participating in implementation planning, community awareness raising and communication, and monitoring once implemented (all of these are best done at a local level); conducting research on impact and methodology improvements (Has it improved welfare? How could it have been better implemented? Costs vs benefits? Subsidy needs and justification? etc), and conducting research on impact on local small businesses (e.g. charcoal producers and retailers, appliance shops, cookstove manufacturers etc).

Promotion or facilitation of renewable energy programmes which need to be at least partially locally based (which may be driven locally or by national or other players), such as biogas, rooftop grid-connected solar PV, and solar water heating initiatives: this includes identification of local biogas opportunities (e.g. abattoir) and facilitating feasibility studies; engaging with power utility around local grid-connected solar PV pilot projects; engaging with local businesses (e.g. solar water heater, solar PV suppliers) regarding how to facilitate rollout and improve affordability; awareness raising and community engagement, and monitoring of implementation; research on impact and methodology improvements to maximize benefits; promotion and advocacy around fast-emerging options such as rooftop grid-connected solar PV; direct procurement of solar PV streetlights, and undertaking landfill gas feasibility studies and subsequent implementation pursuit.

Building energy efficiency promotion (local government often has direct mandates here): this includes developing local bylaws for commercial building energy efficiency; awareness raising around residential building energy efficiency (appropriate window use, shading etc), and organising training of building sector to improve ability for energy efficient construction.

Industrial energy efficiency promotion: including encouraging/incentivising audits (e.g. link with donor EE programmes), and facilitating training and awareness programmes locally.

Bringing sustainable energy concerns into spatial planning and transport planning: this includes introducing densification, corridor development, mixed use and other approaches into spatial plans; bringing tribal authorities (land owners) and municipal officials together in developing a shared vision around spatial futures, and researching and modeling the impact of different spatial and transport interventions on future energy, cost, social welfare, and economic activity – and engage with regional and national transport planning processes to introduce more optimal approaches.

Developing a more conducive enabling environment for implementation: this includes linking with support/donor programmes around supporting sustainable energy, and identifying how collaboration could work; researching and providing local data on energy status, problems, and opportunities; researching and communicating updates on implementation status as programmes are implemented, and evaluate their impact; capacity building of local government staff; programmatic partnerships between local government and local research institutions; developing networks amongst local governments for lessons exchange and mutual support, and developing links between local, regional and national players to facilitate integrated planning and coordinated approaches

Helping clarify the role of local government in sustainable energy, and identify effective methodologies to support them in fulfilling this potential: this includes researching the process of local government involvement and role in sustainable energy, and assess their challenges in this regard, researching approaches to supporting local government to engage effectively with sustainable energy promotion, and disseminate experience in this regard and potential for local government in promoting sustainable energy at workshops, conferences, meetings etc.

The role of local governments and local research organisations in moving to a more sustainable energy future as envisioned by the SDGs is clearly substantial. This has implications for development aid resource allocation and research funding channels.  Importantly, it is not enough to just fund research – a dual approach of partnerships with researchers who align directly with the needs of local governments, as well as a strong focus on real capacity building of local governments is important (note that information dissemination is not capacity building).  Programmes such as SAMSET are working in this area, but the needs are currently far greater than the enabling resources, by an order of magnitude at least.

How to Evaluate the Impact of Research Projects?

Xavier Lemaire and Daniel Kerr from University College London attended the first annual workshop of the Understanding Sustainable Energy Solutions (USES) Network, held at the Wellcome Trust, London, UK on the 8^th July 2014. The workshop was designed to give insights into how best to achieve impact and engagement with beneficiaries in the USES Network projects, which cover a wide variety of aspects of low carbon energy research in developing countries, from institutional networking assistance and business support, to technology dissemination for thermal and electrical energy, to institutional and residential energy efficiency. A number of sessions took place, with an aim to convey insights into how funders and research users engage with academic institutions and organisations conducting research; theories of change and the impacts, both potential and real, that past projects have achieved/failed to achieve; and how best to plan for and assess the impact of the USES projects, and what shared experiences could be brought to bear for the good of all involved projects.

The day began with three presentations on impact, engagement and theories of change. Ed Brown from Loughborough University, in conjunction with Alison Mohr from the University of Nottingham, led off with an introduction to the Participatory Impact Assessment (PIPA) methodology. Adrian Ely from the STEPs Centre at the University of Sussex, and Duncan Green from Oxfam also contributed via video presentations.

Of particular interest was the PIPA methodology for assessing impact, which seeks to identify the inter-linkages in the goals and priorities of all actors in research projects, for example funding agencies, research institutions, local and national governments, community organisations, NGOs and the wider population. Through identifying the synergies in these groups’ priorities and needs, the methodology hopes to provide a clearer insight into the potential impacts of research projects, and the methods needed to achieve them.

The following session saw a number of representatives from the Department for International Development and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, as well as the UKCDS and the Knowledge Transfer Network, conduct a roundtable discussion on the experiences of funding agencies and other organisations in engaging with research and researchers. Broad themes included the importance of quantitative measures of impact and results in the view of the funders and their objectives, as well as highlighting the divergence on timescales for results between public sector projects and research projects.

The whole-room discussions sessions that followed, as well as in the case study presentations, brought forward a number of recurring points. The importance of stakeholder engagement from the very beginning of a project  in achieving impact in research projects, particularly in developing country contexts, was consistently highlighted as a key factor. In-depth knowledge of local country contexts, as well as sectoral expertise in key project members, was identified as a useful factor in achieving project impacts. These factors, along with the targeting of invitations to actors based on their expertise, were also identified to be critical in the creation, funding and initial engagement of projects.

The final session focused on the proposed framework for reporting project impacts to DFID, and how shared experiences within the USES project could help to facilitate greater impacts for all involved projects. Finally, the day concluded with contributions from participants on how the USES network can support the involved projects, predominantly focusing around networking via social media and web networking spaces provided through the USES portal on the LCEDN website.

Roundtable session at LCEDN USES Network Meeting

Urban Energy Transitions – Uganda

Prof. Simon Marvin from Durham University reports on the Durham SAMSET team’s recent work in Uganda.

During March we undertook initial fieldwork in Kampala, Uganda as part of our work on developing a knowledge exchange framework for urban energy transitions in African cities [1]. The work had three main components. i): a ‘netmapping’ exercise to review the institutional landscape of the energy sector with local and national policy makers. ii) meetings with agents of local energy transitions from the NGO and private sector. iii) And dialogue with our Uganda partners on understanding the case study cities and sensitising the knowledge exchange framework to the local context. Three sets of issues emerged that will be important in shaping our future work programme in SAMSET

Restricted Capacity of Municipalities to Shape Energy Transitions

We met the Municipal Town Clerks – the equivalent of a Chief executive in UK – from our two case study cities.  These municipalities have few formal responsibilities for energy issues with policy making priorities and capacity being exercised at a national level – through the energy ministry and the actions of an unbundled energy system of generation, transmission and distribution. Consequently, there was very limited capacity in the local authority to focus on energy issues – with only one member of staff employed to deal with all environmental issues – including working on forests, wastewater etc.  While municipalities were concerned about a range of energy issues in their cities including high costs, disruption, health and air quality plus access of households to formal energy system  – there are few formal mechanisms for them to interact with, or shape, the energy system.

By-passing Municipal and National Context

Mapping the urban energyscape revealed a wide range of local energy initiatives around lighting, fuel-efficient stoves and a range of decentralised technologies.  But these responses were strongly dependent on the actions of external intermediaries – NGOs and private companies  – who worked with local households and community-based organisations to develop local energy initiatives.  What was striking about these was the ways in which these responses tended to connect to international financial mechanisms, agencies and particular national contexts involving private companies, universities and NGOs to a particular local context – household, sewage works etc. There was strong sense that these initiatives largely by-passed the municipal and national contexts within which they were inserted according to external priorities – a form of transnational governance of local energy.

“District Champion” Energy Response.

While the energyscape was incredibly fragmented there was one example of an energy strategy at a municipal scale in Kasese that WWF has chosen as the “ Champion District”[2].  The imitative involves working with a cross-sectoral partnership designed to accelerate energy access for off grid communities through cooking and lighting. A number of different pathways are being experimented with including working with not-for profit NGOs and commercial models.  A private solar provider had report significant up lift in monthly solar installations from 2 up to 400 a month after the scheme provided enhanced access to the market through CBOs.  In contrast an efficient stove NGO reported that the scheme had been less successful in providing access to households.

Solar lighting in Kasese © WWF-Norge/Will Boase

[1] http://samsetproject.net

[2] http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/uganda/

The Challenges of Low Carbon Urban Development

Mark Borchers from SEA comments on the C40 City Mayors Summit, held in Johannesburg in February.

There are plenty of ideas about low carbon urban development. These tend to circulate in policy documents, reviews and conference presentations. The challenge is to take these ideas and let them take root and gain life in the messy engine rooms of cities where the aircon may have been broken for many months, the average qualification basic, a receptionist painting their nails, the engineer gone and the finance officer unwilling to do anything new. It may take 3 months just to appoint a staff member; up to six months to issue a tender and appoint a contractor. I have heard of instances where money for retrofit of public lighting ended up paying staff salaries; and funds for solar water heating installation could not be spent as there was no engineer to sign off that the houses could structurally bear the load.

Scratch the surface, however, and there is also a wealth of experience, irreplaceable on-ground technical knowledge and institutional memory. I have also experienced, across almost every municipality in South Africa at least, a massive commitment to meet the environmental challenges facing us.

In February city leaders met in Johannesburg for the C40 City Mayors Summit. Political analysts Richard Calland and Jerome van Rooij (‘African cities need to work together’) posed the question: will African cities be able to ‘catch the wave’ of cities being “where it’s at” with regard to sustainable development and green-growth, given their fiscal and political/legal limitations? Not without a major gearing up, they conclude.

SAMSET aims to address this, following a model that has been enormously successful in South Africa to date: taking an sustainable energy/urban development idea, working on it hand in hand with city staff; when it hits a snarl-up, deepening the investigation, exploring a number of possibilities and moving closer to a solution – a programme of real intervention. As the work happens, the finance begins to flow in, the capacity to do the work expands, new offices develop and the institution reconfigures itself. Incremental, but potentially powerful.

Municipalities: The Cities of Tomorrow

Alex Ndibwami of Uganda Martyrs University offers his perspective on urbanisation in Uganda, and its energy challenges.

Today’s municipalities as we know them are the cities of tomorrow.  I have come to terms with the fact that cities are inevitable but, much as development of any sorts borrows from global trends, it is also possible to plan how sustainably a society will harness the resources the environment provides.  If only as a warning, it has been predicted that the least developed countries unfortunately, will have the least resilience in the event of any [imminent] natural disasters – the consequence of a wasteful attitude toward our natural resources.

Top of the list of resources is energy, or rather where it is harnessed.  Energy at a social level contributes to how we live, how we work, how we relate, how we think and how we consume.  But for some time and now, today – the main question is about how efficiently it is used and how accessible it is.

In Uganda, like any other (Sub-Saharan African) society, there are a number of different sources of energy and end uses.  Hydro is a ‘popular’ albeit unreliable source of energy and in households for example, this electricity: is used for lighting, cooking, among other household needs or luxuries.  Nationally though, wood based fuel is the most utilised resource because it is not only affordable, but fits within the traditional way of living and preparing meals.  The urban dimension of things however, requires us to look beyond that household threshold to how accessible for example electricity is and how efficiently oil/gas is used and perhaps what alternatives there are in order to mitigate the impacts of (uncontrolled) consumption at both domestic and commercial scale.

But, this is not a concern of many a consumer, because all they need to know is how to survive.  Research initiatives are one way to fill this gap – to advance knowledge on how to deal with some of these issues.  As such, it is a great privilege to be part of such a formidable team.  Indeed, SAMSET is well situated to cater to as wide a context for Africa in West Africa (Ghana), East Africa (Uganda) and Southern Africa (South Africa); and such seasoned partners from the United Kingdom.  The Faculty of the Built Environment at Uganda Martyrs University is committed to research on energy and SAMSET adds an action-oriented dimension for which we are eager to undertake.  The level of service delivery and how far issues to do with energy are understood varies in each context; what is common though is that it ought to be improved.  In this regard, the first network meeting reiterated the need for a careful stakeholder analysis and appreciation of cultures of reception.  As such, for SAMSET to make significant strides, the selection of stakeholders has to take into account the contribution they will make and how strategically situated they are – in local government, community based organisations and the like.  In addition, we will be dealing with municipal councils and their constituents whose context we have to appreciate for them to embrace any interventions.

We look forward to a successful project.

60 Years of the UCL Development Planning Unit

The Development Planning Unit from University College London has been working on urban development and planning in developing countries since its establishment in 1954. It is part of The Bartlett, UCL’s global faculty of the built environment.

Research at DPU focuses currently on ‘urban transition’, notably institutional paths in service and infrastructure production with understanding of the spatiality of urban poverty. Particular attention is given to the peri-urban context, characterised by rapidly expanding unmet needs. The DPU looks notably at the social complexity in policy planning linked to rapid urbanization. It also has a growing interest on how urban planning can improve city resilience to shocks notably linked to climate change.

DPU is not just involved in research but also in capacity building and action-oriented work in developing countries. It has accumulated a considerable body of research over the last decades. An international conference to celebrate the 60 years of DPU entitled “Thinking Across Boundaries: Re-Imagining Planning in the Urban Global South” will be held from 2-4 July 2014.

https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu