As the world moves towards 2030, the deadline for achieving the targets of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Initiative, it is important to review the achievements of the past years and readjust our path to meet the goal. For this reason, Practical Action together with the Smart Villages Initiative held a one-day regional workshop on rural energy access planning on 20 February 2017 in Lomé, Togo. The workshop was coupled with the official launch of the French-language version of the 2016 Poor People’s Energy Outlook (PPEO 2016). It gathered about 50 participants from various backgrounds, including policymakers, academia, representatives of the private sector, rural communities’ leaders, the media, and civil society. The objective of the workshop was to analyse the potential for community-based approaches to strengthen national energy planning processes in West Africa. This brief summarises the key findings and recommendations of the workshop for policymakers, development organisations, and other stakeholders.
