One strength of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is that it comes with a tight deadline. We are used to talking about climate change over long timescales, speaking of impacts expected and actions needed by 2050 or beyond, which reduces the impetus for immediate action. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) force us to focus on what can and needs to be done now, leaving us just 13 years to increase human wellbeing across the planet while at the same time safeguarding the environment and combatting climate change.

By Olivia Coldrey and Jana Weber

Stipendiaten machen Programm | A program of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation

Olivia Coldrey, REEEP’s Director, Sustainable Finance, recently spent an afternoon with a group of exceptional scholarship students from Germany exploring sustainable development scenarios for Nepal to 2050. This was a great opportunity for REEEP to share its expertise and at the same time get a fresh view on the issues we work on from the next generation of leaders.

The fundamental lesson from the Indian experience for any country looking to rapidly accelerate expansion of electricity access is that market-based decentralized renewable energy solutions represent the fastest and most cost-effective ways to bring energy to underserved rural and peri-urban populations; but to leverage the innovation, expertise and investment of the private sector, governments must work to include such approaches in development and electrification master planning, and to develop sustainable mechanisms for compensating private operators and providers of energy services for providing a public good to society.