Workshop on the energy and water nexus for remote off-grid communities:
The Smart Villages Initiative and the Philippines Center for Water and Sanitation
Throughout Southeast Asia, over 120 million people still live without access to electricity, with the majority of these people living in rural communities. This lack of energy has strong impacts on their capacity to develop and improve other aspects of their quality of life. At the same time, the number of people that lack access to improved drinking water sources in Southeast Asia is 61 million, with 8 out of 10 of these living in rural areas, and there are 176 million in the region without proper sanitation.
There are significant overlaps between projects that are focused on energy access, and those that are focused on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Water can be used for generating electricity, and equally, a nexus approach highlights that energy is required for pumping, moving and distributing water, while energy and water are both critical for food production, processing and transport. In order to meet some of the pressing challenges facing communities without access to modern energy, development solutions are required that maximize synergies and manage trade-offs between energy provision and access to water and food.
Aims
This workshop aims to bring together the energy access and WASH communities of the Philippines and surrounding region to identify key areas of overlap in their missions. It aims to encourage practitioners from the WASH, agriculture and energy access communities to work together in rural contexts to avoid pitfalls and solve problems.
Key questions
The workshop hopes to answer several key questions. How can the energy and water communities influence the thinking of donors? What are some concrete examples of using a combined energy-water nexus approach in the field? What are the best solutions to some of the lingering problems in the WASH and energy access area?
How can the WASH and energy sectors work together to improve policies, build capacity, raise awareness, and strengthen partnerships?
Want to attend?
If you would like to attend and/or speak at this event please contact us at info@e4sv.org. Places are limited so please identify your area of expertise and register your interest as soon as possible.
