and final evaluations, especially where novel technologies are introduced. In India, for example, the project attempted to introduce bioenergy technology that was beyond the needs and financial capacity of farmer cooperatives, and the project closed without significant improvement in rural livelihoods or changes to decentralized renewable energy regulations and subsidies. As well as the potential negative impacts of leaving behind unusable hardware at the local level, these initiatives lead decision makers to lose confidence in such technologies and make it harder to bring about supportive policy change. UNDP work in crisis/post-crisis contexts has focused primarily on deploying solar technology in response to urgent energy needs, and enabling environment support has proved challenging due the fragility of the governance structures. UNDP has provided a level of support to longer-term response plans; for example, the Regional Bureau for the Arab States developed the energy sections of the national response plans to the Syrian crisis in Jordan and Lebanon, countries with the highest per capita share of refugees and high levels of dependency on imported fuel. In addition to the elements describe above, Yemen has supported local governance of energy schemes through the village cooperative councils that formulated the community resilience plans, and made possible the access to local and external financing for community projects. Less successful examples were found elsewhere.
4.3 ENERGY TRANSITION This section looks at UNDP results in encouraging countries to move towards less polluting forms of energy production and consumption. It covers initiatives that support transition, rather than those included in the access and clean cooking sections above, although the two overlap. It also covers UNDP results in establishing or improving the enabling conditions for transition – such as policies, investments and capacities – and links these to the uptake of renewables and efficiency measures wherever possible. Finding 8. Renewable energy achievements. UNDP has supported energy transitions with subnational partners in a number of challenging contexts. However, multi-country and national-level projects, while broadly successful, have not yet delivered transformational change at scale. Projects that aim to encourage further investment by building capacity, demonstrating viability and securing policy change typically require more years to show results. The seven completed renewable89 energy projects assessed in this evaluation cover industrial/municipal sustainable biomass generation (Brazil, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine), de-risking the transition to renewables (Caribbean), capacity-building for low-carbon development (Kenya) and PV generation and capacity-building to start transforming the City of Marrakesh Bus Rapid Transit System. Further analysis of each project is provided in annex 8. Most of the initiatives assessed have been successful and combined have averted 5.1 million tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2 eq) within the lifetime of these projects.90 Complex multi-stakeholder partnerships have been established to deliver changes in the enabling environment (policy/institutional aspects for the Caribbean and Kenya) and (policy/institutional plus financial for Marrakesh (Morocco), Serbia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine). In some cases, the viability of clean technology has been demonstrated, e.g., with major private
89
90
The majority of renewable energy projects were independently evaluated to have met their objectives (satisfactory) or exceeding them (highly satisfactory). Two projects were evaluated as being moderately satisfactory. Six out of eighteen project evaluations.
Chapter 4. FINDINGS
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