Electrification Powers Progress
Energising Lives and Opportunities through Sustainable Energy Solutions
Access to electricity means more than flicking a light switch. It can mean being able to study in the evening, access the internet, or facilitate cold chains in food processing or vaccine storage. Especially in rural areas, electricity is vital for improving livelihoods and driving economic growth. Yet, in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 600 million people still lack this basic service.
To address this challenge, EnDev is accelerating electrification in underserved and remote communities, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), as well as schools and health centres. With this, EnDev fosters resilience, economic development, and inclusivity, powering brighter futures across the globe.
EnDev’s Ambition Level
EnDev contributes to achieving sustainable energy access for all, in alignment with global agendas such as Agenda 2030 (SDG7) and the Paris Agreement. The programme, jointly with its partners at both the global and local levels, ensures that no one is left behind, particularly focusing on vulnerable groups, including people living in poverty, refugees, and women.
Key Ambitions:
- Leave No One Behind: Prioritising low-income and marginalised populations in hard-to-reach areas, with a specific emphasis on women and refugees.
- Focus on Renewable Energy: EnDev supports sustainable and clean energy solutions, with its main focus on solar products like solar lamps (pico PV), solar home systems, and mini-grids.
- All-Tier Electrification: EnDev provides access to various levels of electrification, from basic lighting to productive and community-scale energy solutions.
- Tier Progression: Facilitating the transition of beneficiaries from lower to higher energy access tiers, enabling greater economic and social empowerment.
- Climate and Environmental Responsibility: EnDev increasingly integrates environmental considerations into its electrification efforts, aiming to ensure sustainable system components, recycling, and end-of-life management.
Approach: Key Pillars of EnDev’s Interventions
EnDev follows a market-based approach to accelerate clean energy access. By fostering inclusive and sustainable energy markets, EnDev ensures long-term impact, particularly in countries where the electrification rate is below 75% on average.
- Technical & Business Capacity Building: Providing user training on operation and maintenance across all tiers, business development support, certified high-quality hardware, and in-kind assistance.
- Access to Finance: Implementing results-based financing on both the demand and supply side, complemented by pay-as-you-go business models for greater accessibility.
- Policy Advice & Capacity Development: Offering strategic guidance, regulatory support, facilitating the establishment of standards and labelling, and providing capacity-building to create a needs-based enabling policy environment.
- Partnerships & Alliances: Engaging in multi-stakeholder collaboration, both at the country level and through international advocacy.
- Evidence, Learning & Innovation: Strengthening data collection, analysis, verified impacts, and knowledge management through increased digitalisation—thus fostering innovation and scale.
Spotlight: Energising Health
Refrigerators, solar systems, and digital technologies—this combination enables 1,200 health centres in rural regions of Africa to reliably cool life-saving vaccines and improve medical care.EnDev’s “Energising Health” initiative facilitated the installation of 680 vaccine refrigerators, and over 1,000 solar systems secure the cold chain in five African countries.
EnDev supplies health centres in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Liberia, and Senegal with refrigerators that are connected directly to solar panels. This technology is robust and long-lasting and helps keep vaccines at stable temperatures. In addition, the project has also provided modern solar energy systems, ensuring that medical staff can perform treatments and deliveries under proper lighting conditions—rather than by candlelight or mobile phone torches.
Energising Health is supported by Germany’s special funds for vaccination logistics. Through the so-called “Last Mile Initiative,” the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has strengthened healthcare infrastructures in remote areas.
Find out how digital solutions enable project scaling: Digitalisation in Healthcare: How EnDev’s Digital Solutions Enable Scaling – EnDev
Powering Businesses: Productive Use of Energy
EnDev supports the productive use of energy to foster economic development in rural areas. By providing access to climate-friendly energy, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) can increase productivity and create new income opportunities or revenue streams.
The supported enterprises primarily use electrical technologies and appliances for irrigation, lighting, IT services, and agricultural applications such as cooling, milling, grinding, threshing, and drying. In 2023, nearly half of the MSMEs purchased solar water pumps for agricultural purposes.
New trends included the introduction of electric pressure cookers (eCooking), especially in Kenya and Nepal, as well as the installation of charging stations for e-mobility in Bangladesh. Electrification helps these businesses strengthen value chains and promote sustainable growth.
Read more: Productive Use of Energy – EnDev
