New regional opportunities

The Low Emission Development Global Partnership (LEDS GP) creates opportunities for professionals to exchange experience on practical aspects of low emission development. Members of our network say they value these platforms for skills exchange and learning – whether it is in person, or increasingly through ‘virtual’ meetings and conversations, and through technical collaborations.

CDKN’s United Kingdom-based offices help run the LEDS GP’s global Secretariat, while CDKN’s African hub supports the Africa LEDS Partnership.

This year, the LEDS GP is ramping up its support for regionally-based learning groups or ‘Communities of Practice’ that will explore specific economic sectors and financing mechanisms. As countries tackle the complex business of delivering on the Paris climate agreement, government officials, businesspeople, NGO staff, researchers and others will find these targeted, specialised groups to be of great value in advancing their day-to-day work.

These Communities of Practice build on the initial, positive experiences of the Africa Mini Grids Community, which started last year. Margaret Kamau of the Africa Development Bank, a member of that group, said: “The Mini Grids Community of Practice … provides an opportunity to network with experts in the mini-grids sector, to share technical knowledge. More importantly, the training on mini-grids financing was useful in understanding how to further stimulate private sector investment in the area, particularly by creating awareness on the barriers or gaps to financing, and the various financing opportunities available for the development of the sector”.

Solutions for immediate problems

The Communities of Practice aim to work together on real-time policy, technical, and market solutions related to low emission development.

In the longer term, the participants in the LEDS GP’s Communities of Practice will benefit from access to support – such support is free for developing country members at the point of access. The idea is that these active community members will go on to become ambassadors for low emission development: they will be more confident and influential spokespeople for the opportunities and benefits of ‘going low carbon’.

Flexibility to suit countries’ priorities

As a demand-driven network, the focal areas and activities of these Communities of Practice are defined by their members and are adaptive in nature.  Members can make the case for which topics the communities should focus on next – or whether completely new communities should spring up.

All communities of practice will conduct the following activities in 2018:

• Online peer-to-peer learning and training on the communities’ specific topics (see below).
• In-person training and peer learning workshop – limited travel support is available to developing country participants from national and subnational governments.
• Compiling resources, good practices, case studies and tools to advance implementation.
• Delivery of no-cost remote expert advisory support service – limited to developing country national and subnational governments.

The Communities of Practice all examine specific sub-sectors, low emission technologies or investment approaches, and are led by our Working Group leads (which cover the broad areas of Agriculture forestry and other land use, Energy, Finance, Subnational Integration and Transport and the Regional Platforms (Asia, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, and Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

How can you participate?

Whether you belong to a government agency, donor organisation, academic or technical institute, private sector, or NGO, you can participate actively by:

• Learning from peers who are implementing low emission development solutions and receiving targeted training and advisory support support from LEDS GP working groups.
• Making use of tools and knowlege products shared by the Community to advance your LEDS work.
• Sharing your and your country’s experiences, challenges and opportunities. Sharing resources, good approaches, news and tools with other Community members. Serving as a role model to other practitioners. Spreading the learning from the Community of Practice back to your organisation.
• Identifying the needs of your country and requesting/receiving no-cost advisory support from LEDS GP (limited to developing country governments).

Below is the list of the Communities for 2018 with information on how to join each one. For any information on LEDS GP activities, please contact secretariat@ledsgp.org

Africa

Africa Mini-Grids Community of Practice

Launched in 2017, the Community of Practice engages over 10 countries in Africa on mini-grids, looking at technical, regulatory and financial barriers and solutions. In 2017, discussions and training focused on quality assurance frameworks and tariff setting. In 2018, the Community of Practice will focus on facilitating peer learning and providing technical assistance on financing and policies for mini-grid systems.

Participating countries to date: Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia

How to join: Please email africasecretariat@ledsgp.org and energy@ledsgp.org

See the detailed schedule of activities and concept note 

Africa AFOLU Community of Practice

The AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) Community of Practice in Africa focuses on facilitating peer to peer exchange, providing training and technical assistance and sharing best practices on:

• Agroforestry action as a driver of socio-economic development and emission reduction.
• Linking agricultural production with small-scale energy sources to enable socioeconomic development and emission reductions.
• Analytical approaches to assess greenhouse gas emissions and socioeconomic development impact of actions across the energy and agriculture sector through integrating models and translating approaches into policies and actions.

Participating countries to date: Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, and Zambia

How to join: Please email Sadie.Cox@nrel.gov and afolu@ledsgp.org

See the detailed schedule of activities

Asia

Grid Renewable Energy Community of Practice

The Community of Practice is supporting Asian countries to accelerate action towards achieving a greater integration of renewable energy generation into their electricity mix. The Community is providing training, technical assistance, technical resources and peer learning opportunities to participating countries on the building blocks for grid renewable energy development and grid integration issues.

Participating countries to date: Vietnam, Laos PDR, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Nepal, China, Myanmar and others TBD.

How to join: Please join here. For more information, email alpsecretariat@iclei.org and Carishma.Gokhale-Welch@nrel.gov

See the detailed schedule of activities

Asia Clean Mobility Community of Practice

The Asia Clean Mobility Community of Practice focuses on supporting countries on policies and technical solutions for transitioning to clean mobility by strengthening the operational and energy efficiency of public transport policies and systems. Community members will benefit from participation in online and in-person exchange meetings, seminars and training with other peers working on efficient and cleaner mobility. These will include subtopics such as clean fuel alternatives, electric public transport fleets, improving public transport’s operational efficiencies, supporting infrastructure creation, policy and regulatory frameworks, analysis and tools for planning approaches, institutional arrangements (including multilevel governance) and private sector involvement.

Participating countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, additional TBD

How to join: Please join here. For more information, email alpsecretariat@iclei.org and transport@ledsgp.org

See the detailed schedule of activities

Asia Community of Practice on Clean Energy Investment

The goal of the Asia Community of Practice on Clean Energy Investment is to address real-time finance, policy and technical challenges to rapidly accelerate investment flows into clean energy implementation efforts across the Asia region. It will do this by bringing together key government and private sector decision makers to:

• Rapidly identify key barriers to investment mobilisation in clean energy at the political, regulatory and financial levels on a country-by-country basis.
• Develop rapid response political, regulatory and capital markets interventions to address those barriers.
• Coordinate with partner country governments, donors, philanthropy and the private sector to implement the identified interventions and solutions in a targeted and cost-efficient manner.

Participating countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, others TBD

How to join: Please join here For more information, please email alpsecretariat@iclei.organd finance@ledsgp.org

See the detailed schedule of activities

Asia Multilevel Governance Country Teams and Community of Practice

LEDS GP is providing in-depth support to strengthen multi-level governance to selected countries in Asia. A Community of Practice will be launched to disseminate the learning through development of case studies, exchange among countries, and light advisory support for replication of approaches.

Participating countries: Bhutan, Laos, Sri Lanka, Thailand, additional countries TBD

How to join: Please email alpsecretariat@iclei.org and sniwg@ledsgp.org

Latin America and the Caribbean

LAC Electric Mobility Community of Practice

This Community of Practice is an interactive network comprising national and subnational governments, technical institutions, academia, private companies, not-for-profit and other international organisations addressing real-time policy, financing and technical barriers and solutions related to electric mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a platform for ongoing collaboration to allow for peer to peer learning, a deeper understanding of the options available to overcome barriers, continuous access to tools and expert assistance, and to foster leaders that will serve as coaches for other countries in the region. The Community is designed with a bottom up approach in order to address the main barriers for the transition to electric mobility in the LAC region and to offer support to countries to do so.

Participating countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, others TBD

How to join: Please email secretariat@ledslac.org and transport@ledsgp.org

See the detailed schedule of activities

LAC Multilevel Governance Country Teams and Community of Practice

The Subnational Integration Working Group is providing in-depth support to strengthen multilevel governance to selected countries in LAC. A Community of Practice is being launched to disseminate learning through developing case studies, exchanging knowledge among countries, and providing light advisory support.

Participating countries: Chile, Paraguay, others TBD

How to join: Please email secretariat@ledslac.org and sniwg@ledsgp.org

Bioelectricity Community of Practice

Launched in 2016, the Bioenergy Community of Practice is providing support and facilitating peer exchange amongst countries working to advance bioenergy policies and actions. Based on participants’ feedback, in 2018 the focus will be on the design of effective policy and regulation environment that attract investment in sustainable biogas projects.

Participating countries:  Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Uruguay

How to join: Please email secretariat@ledslac.org and energy@ledsgp.org

Rural LEDS Community of Practice

The Rural LEDS Community of Practice as a vehicle to facilitate peer to peer exchanges among LAC governments, private sector, international programs and other relevant stakeholders who are working on policies, measures and planning approaches that greatly impact rural development. The objective of the Rural LEDS Community of Practice is to accelerate rural development in the LAC region through an integrated planning approach across sectoral efforts and different levels of governance looking specifically at:

• Approaches to harmonising budgeting processes.
• Policies and other measures that support rural development across various sectors and governance levels.
• Approaches to strengthen multi-level governance.
• Tools and approaches to harmonising greenhouse gas accounting systems.

Participating countries: Guatemala, Peru, others TBD

How to join: Please email secretariat@ledslac.org and afolu@ledsgp.org