PVPS and the millennium development goals Delivering a real contribution towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is one of the strong driving principles behind Task 9. The eight goals were adopted as a framework for measuring development progress, following the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations in September 2000. Neither access to modern energy services in general, nor provision of electricity, are recognized as specific goals in themselves. Nevertheless they can play a central role in poverty alleviation, through impacts on education, health and local enterprise, as well as access to telecommunications and information technology resources. The MDGs and some of the roles for PV are:
1	Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – Lighting allows increased income generation and reliable electricity encourages enterprise development, energy for water supplies for cooking and drinking and water for irrigation increases food production.
2	Achieve universal primary education – Electricity enables access to educational media and communications, energy helps create a more child-friendly environment and reduces school drop-out rates and lighting in schools allows evening classes and helps retain teachers.
3	Promote gender equality and empower women – Availability of modern energy means women do not have to carry out survival activities, good quality lighting permits home study and reliable energy services offer scope for women’s enterprises to develop.
4	Reduce child mortality – Electricity can bring about less indoor air pollution, increased safety, free up more time to be spent on child care and provide pumped water and purification.
5	Improve maternal health – Energy services provide access to better medical facilities (vaccine refrigeration, equipment sterilization, operating theatres). Provision of cooked food and space-heating contribute to better health.
6	Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases – Energy services provide better medical facilities, and energy can help produce and distribute sex education literature and contraceptives.
7	Ensure environmental sustainability – Traditional fuel use contributes to erosion, reduced soil fertility and desertification, energy can be used to pump and purify clean ground water.
8	Develop a global partnership for development – Energy supply can contribute to the development of information and communication technologies in remote/ rural areas.

Identifying and securing finance can be an all-consuming concern for developers of PV deployment programmes. A new report from Task 9 may ease the burden.

Without adequate capital resources, PV programme planning, equipment purchases, transportation and installation, as well as ongoing training and long-term maintenance are largely impossible. In such cases, the only outcome is that the programme – no matter how well-intentioned – cannot get off the ground.

Finance availability in itself is not necessarily the problem. Internationally there are numerous sources of loans and grants, as well as equity investors and other potential financiers or guarantors that might support PV deployment initiatives under the right circumstances. But this is the key; all too often PV programme developers fail to address the investors risk concerns or develop inadequately structured programme concepts that do not meet the expected return on investment or other such criteria.

To complement its recommended practice guides that have dealt with issues such as the Institutional Framework and Financial Instruments for PV Deployment in Developing Countries and Financing Mechanisms for Solar Home Systems, IEA-PVPS Task 9 has recently released a guide to Sources of Financing for PV-Based Rural Electrification in Developing Countries. The guide is focused at assisting host governments and bilateral institutions, private developers and non-governmental organizations to identify PV finance, to understand the accompanying lending or investment criteria and to prepare to ‘sell’ their project to the financiers.

The guide, Report T9-08:2004, opens with a description of risk analysis and the barriers to financing. A large part of the report is devoted to sources of finance, covering international concessionary financing from multilateral and regional development banks, bilateral development agencies and benevolent foundations, as well as potential national and commercial options. A number of matrices give a simple overview of the typical variables that influence financial appraisal decisions for each of these sources and the type or mix of finance options that might be appropriate for particular types of programmes. An introduction outlining the process for engaging with potential financiers and for developing appropriate business plans to improve the chance of securing finance is also provided.

The report, together with the others in the Task 9 Recommended Practice Guide series, is available for download free-of-charge from the publications' section.

[ Top ] [ Previous issue of PV Power ] [ Next article in PV Power ]