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Contribution/Collaboration areas

Energy is a basic need and a key to overcome poverty and resolving environmental degradation. Restrictions on energy access negatively impact populations in humanitarian settings. A lack of safe access to adequate energy poses serious risks for displaced and vulnerable people. Well-planned energy interventions, on the other hand, can provide significant benefits associated with protection, gender equality, food security, water, sanitation and health, education, livelihoods, connectivity, and environmental protection. Access to energy is also empowering, enabling women to gain greater control over their lives and futures. UNHCR will promote sustainable household energy technologies, including the expanded use of renewable energy, to minimize the environmental impact of operations in a way that is inclusive of host communities and other stakeholders while improving the protection and wellbeing of refugees. Likewise, UNHCR aims to increase access to clean energy for schools, health centres and other institutions. It equally strives to complement UNHCR’s efforts to introduce comprehensive energy efficiency measures and equip its global office infrastructure with sustainable energy solutions. UNHCR leads the implementation of the UNHCR Global Strategy for Sustainable Energy, comprising the overall conceptual framework that aims to ensure that energy interventions contribute to enhance protection and dignified lives for refugees. UNHCR’s work in the area of energy will be guided by its protection mandate and a set of principles contained in the UNHCR policy on Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD), the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), the 2030 Agenda for UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the UNHCR Strategic Framework for Climate Action (SFCA), the Operational Strategy for Climate Resilience and Environmental Sustainability and the UN Climate Neutrality Strategy and the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

Contribution/Collaboration areas

UNITAR hosts the Coordination Unit of the Global Platform for Action on Sustainable Energy in Displacement Settings (GPA). Since the inception of the GPA in 2018, UNITAR has facilitated joint outputs on the GPA Framework Document recommendations between members of the GPA Steering Group and wider partners network in five thematic working areas of coordination, policy, innovative finance, capacity building and data. The GPA Coordination Unit is responsible for developing global collective impact strategies with the GPA Steering Group member organizations in the form of the GPA Work Plan, co-leading the Clean Energy Challenge with UNHCR as a global campaign for increased financial, political, technical and in kind support towards clean energy in displacement contexts, and supporting sector-wide knowledge sharing and operational coordination through facilitating the Humanitarian Energy Exchange Network (previously known as the SAFE Working Group). Please find the detailed work of the GPA here: https://www.humanitarianenergy.org/thematic-working-areas