The Voice of the Off-Grid Solar Energy Industry

Community of Champions

Community of Champions - supported by World Bank/ESMAP, Shell Foundation, USAID/Power Africa, FCDO/ACE, and SEforAll was formed as a platform for ongoing exchange primarily between governments and with the private sector and development partners to work collaboratively towards creating a supportive policy environment through shared learning and best practices to help achieve universal energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Since its launch, the Community of Champions platform has facilitated interactive and open dialogue amongst government decision-makers, industry, and the international donor community through five in-person meetings as well as a webinar series for engagement in between the meetings.

The Community of Champions is a platform that:

Facilitates peer to peer learning between governments and exchange of ideas, challenges, successes, and best practices related to scaling up off-grid energy access through integrated energy approaches for public sector energy access champions.
Facilitates a tripartite dialogue between governments, the private sector off-grid solar industry and development partners / relevant stakeholders to collaboratively create an enabling policy environment for the realization of universal energy access across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The objective of the platform is to create an open learning and sharing environment in which the government officials can deliberate on public sector alternatives for universal energy access through integrated energy solutions, approaches to stimulate/leverage private sector investment, demonstrate successes, deliberate failures and examine learnings from the impact of policy changes on the off-grid solar sector in their respective countries.

In 2021, we aim to facilitate at least three online meetings as well as a possible in-person meeting. We are also in the process of expanding the community to cover 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including the earlier members: Benin, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, EACREEE, ECREEE, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.

We will inform you shortly on the dates of the next edition of the Community of Champions.

Webinar Series

In 2019, the Community of Champions has expanded to include a webinar series for its members.

Watch:

Webinar 1: Policies to Promote Quality Off-Grid Products | Politiques visant à promouvoir la qualité des produits hors réseau:
- English: Video | Presentation
- Français: Vidéo | Présentation
Webinar 2: Integrated Electrification Pathways | Les voies d’électrification intégrées pour un accès universel à l’électricité (IEP)
- English: Presentation
- Français: Présentation
Webinar 3: Socioeconomic Benefits of Off-Grid Solar: Focus on Productive Uses | Avantages socio-économiques de l'énergie solaire hors-réseau. Gros plan sur les utilisations productives
- English: Video | Presentation
- Français: Vidéo | Présentation