2. Community assessment and selection

Considering that the purpose of the project is to establish policy guidelines, it is necessary to understand the initial status of the rural energy sector in each recipient country of the project. To this end, a diagnosis of the situation in the rural sector will be prepared, which will make it possible to understand the social and economic context, institutional and regulatory matters, on-going programs and projects, existing services, current stumbling blocks, among other baseline elements.

Each recipient country will select a community for implementing 3 pilot energy systems. Community selection will adopt a set of criteria related to poverty level, service coverage, governmental planning, basic infrastructure, promotion of production projects, among others. In each of the selected communities, an initial diagnosis of needs and resource availability will be done, with the direct involvement of the population, seeking to prioritize their needs in order to implement projects aimed towards their full development and self-sustainability.

When defining pilot projects for execution, related experiences had in other countries are sought out. For this purpose, a survey of successful projects will be made, in order to select the most outstanding initiatives and replicate them in the 12 pilot projects. These projects should be complementary, as they are carried out in the same community.

3. Design and implementation of pilot projects

The pilot projects to be executed will be defined by the community and project technical team, and will be oriented towards considering energy as a tool for development. On the basis of this assumption, projects may be aimed at meeting basic needs such as water supply, health, education, and communication, through energy systems. They may also be aligned with the execution of production units that generate income for the community. 

One element that will receive special consideration is the establishment of project sustainability mechanisms. Therefore, a community enterprise will be responsible for taking care of the administration, operation, financing, and maintenance of the 3 pilot projects, so that they might function normally and finance their operations with their own resources. The project will facilitate a seed fund for equipment procurement, to be managed under a revolving fund scheme in order to finance other projects in the beneficiary country. 

Another feature of the project will be training the community population and national counterpart in energy system design, construction, operation, maintenance and administration for the pilot projects.

4. System impact assessment

Studies regarding the impact  and acceptance of the energy systems by the population receiving this cooperation will be done, seeking to understand the primary criteria, problems, successes, and recommendations on the operation, service, cost, administration, changes in the people’s standard of living, income generated, and other pertinent data that make it possible to assess the project’s positive and negative impacts on the community. These documents will be presented and reviewed during national workshops with the participation of the community, the national technical counterpart, and the project coordination team.

5. Gender focus

Women constitute the central point in rural households to supply and manage the energy component, and their involvement is essential to any home or community energy initiative. Accordingly, a propositional study is planned to propose policy guidelines that would allow for a suitable participation by women in the energy sector of OLADE’s Member Countries. This document will be discussed during a Regional Gender Workshop that will make it possible to enrich the proposal.  

6. The role of indigenous peoples

In order to promote greater involvement on the part of minority social groups, a study is planned to review and propose policy guidelines that will make it possible to incorporate indigenous peoples into the energy sector of OLADE’s Member Countries. This document will be discussed during a Regional Workshop in order to enrich the proposal.   

7. Policy guidelines

Based on the results of the pilot projects developed in each country and on the diagnosis document, a proposal for policy strategies and guidelines will be developed seeking to expand rural electrification, taking into account changes in or creation of new mechanisms arising from the review (that may be institutional, regulatory, and financial, among others). This proposal will be reviewed during national workshops with the participation of all involved stakeholders.

Once the national documents and policy guideline proposals to include gender and indigenous peoples have been made available, a consolidated document will be prepared brining together all the proposals, to be presented and reviewed during a Regional Seminar-Workshop to which representatives from all Member Countries of OLADE will be invited.