Where and When?
Venue: SDG Pavilion, Blue Zone
Date: 03 December 2023; Time: 11:45 - 12:30 UAE time
Background and Context
The world has experienced an unprecedented increase in the number of people who are forcibly displaced as a result of unstable economic and political situations, conflict, natural hazards, and climate change. The humanitarian sector is overwhelmed by the high demand for protection and access to the basic needs of over 100 million people, especially the crucial intersection of energy access and climate action in this context.
Rooted in immediate crisis relief, traditional humanitarian intervention and planning embody little consideration of the protracted nature of most displacement contexts. Such prolonged unstable situations need medium to long-term sustainable solutions especially in the realms of energy access and climate action. Rather than continuing to enforce aid models of dependency, humanitarian partners in Africa can support displaced communities in designing and implementing resilience-based models for local development, integrating solutions that address energy access challenges and contribute to climate action. Models that are locally, socio-culturally, environmentally and economically informed and driven. With this as its guiding mission, the GPA’s Transforming Humanitarian Energy Access Programme is working to ensure that persons affected by displacement are at the center of humanitarian decision-making, energy programming as well as other interventions.
This interactive panel discussion will facilitate and guided along the content of the newly published Inclusivity Strategy for Humanitarian Energy’s Strategic Outlook, aims to bring high-level humanitarian, development and refugee-led organisation leaders together to discuss the current role of displaced persons in humanitarian programming with a strong focus on climate and energy concerns in displacement settings in Africa, and collectively rethink their role in decision-making spaces, challenging the sector’s non-inclusive practices to date.
Objectives of the event
- Provide innovative and continued discussion to ensure Africa’s displaced people are not left behind in the interventions for transition to sustainable energy solutions.
- Sharing knowledge on energy needs, community facilities and institutional uses, that then forms the basis of potential pathways for business model development and inclusive investment in humanitarian settings especially in the African continent.
- Gain the attention of the Climate Negotiators to consider refugees and other displaced people in promoting actions towards SDG13.
Key messages
- Prioritise and support collaborative approaches that help develop and sustain markets for energy access solutions in all displacement contexts.
- Adopt the Global Refugee-led Network’s strategy of “nothing about us without us”, a system-wide framework in which no decisions pertaining to displaced communities are made without their active participation.
- The GPA advocates for the ‘meaningful participation’ of displaced and host communities in humanitarian energy programming, meaning that displaced persons and host community members— regardless of location, legal recognition, gender, identity and demographics — are prepared for and actively participating in processes where humanitarian energy solutions are being developed, designed, conceptualised or delivered, and/or decisions relating to energy in displacement contexts are being made, in a manner that is ethical, sustained, safe, and supported.
Links to background documentation:
- Inclusivity Strategy for Humanitarian Energy
- The State of the Humanitarian Energy Sector 2022
- A Roadmap for Energy Access in Displacement Settings: Uganda
- A Roadmap for Energy Access in Displacement Settings: Kenya
- Integrating Displaced Populations into National Climate Change Policy and Planning - Policy Brief
Last updated: 17/11/2023