“With the help of this project, we have been able to provide better services to mothers and children. Previously, we worked only in the morning, but today we are able to work longer hours and store and deliver vaccines and other medications that people desperately need" Nabil Ahmed, health facility manager.
Peri-urban and rural populations will benefit directly from the improvements in access to modern household energy, as well as indirectly from better access to services. The project is designed to reduce gender gaps related to access to energy and finance, thus benefiting women and girls. Critical service providers — including health facilities, schools, and rural water corporations — also stand to benefit from grant-financed solar systems. The project ultimately strengthens the service delivery capacity of the public sector.
Restoring clean and renewable power at an affordable price to critical facilities is crucial to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in the country, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. Improving household access to energy is central to restoring livelihoods, mitigating the impacts of the crisis, and addressing people’s most pressing daily needs. Electricity is a critical factor in the crisis, with its ability to restore livelihoods and help people to stave off preventable diseases.
The affordability of solar products represented a key barrier for the most vulnerable households, and the low quality of products and after-sales support threatened the sustainability of the fledgling solar market. While many consumers opted for cheaper, low quality power systems, those systems often broke down after a few months. With limited incentives for power companies to supply and install high-quality systems, they, too, opted for lower quality products and materials.
The Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project (YEEAP) focused on improving access to electricity in rural and peri-urban areas. YEEAP was funded and supported by the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries, to finance solar solutions to provide urgently needed access to electricity in Yemen. The project was implemented by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in collaboration with local entities, including microfinance institutions, solar equipment suppliers, and technical service providers.
Due to a lack of long-term sector strategies or policies, priorities have shifted from a focus on the medium and long term to restoring critical services in the short-term. In such a difficult environment, a decentralized resilient and sustainable power system is crucial.
The project engaged eligible, regulated Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to help add small-scale energy products to their portfolios. The project created financing windows for high-quality, small-scale solar solutions, and provided partial subsidies to beneficiaries to make these systems affordable for them. The project also engaged solar suppliers and installers to provide grant-financed solar energy systems to critical service facilities in the same geographical areas.
Additionally, the project provided technical assistance, capacity building, and other market-strengthening measures to make the solar market in Yemen more inclusive and sustainable, including providing technical training and capacity building to firms along the solar supply chain (financial institutions, retailers, installers, and other service providers); technical assistance to the financial sector to develop de-risking mechanisms for commercial lending for solar; and the definition and dissemination of technical standards.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the project provided solar suppliers and installers with grant-financed solar energy systems for COVID-19 isolation units. These suppliers and installers also supported frontline health workers with small-scale solar systems.
By June of 2022, six microfinance institutions (MFIs) had gained the knowledge, capacity, and business models to build financing products suitable for small-scale energy systems and introduced the products into their portfolio. The MFIs were trained on how to sustain their operations and develop new business lines related to the small-scale energy sector.
Microfinance institutions have already established new financing products for small-scale energy solutions, expanded their operations’ reach in rural areas, and built other microfinance options suited to poorer members of the population living in remote areas.
- A total of 91,715 households in rural and peri-urban areas, 21 percent of which were female-headed households, acquired high-quality pico systems: autonomous, mobile solar energy systems that can be used for rural electrification at subsidized prices.
- The project helped 517 critical facilities (234 schools, 220 health centers, 23 COVID-19 isolation units, 40 water wells) to receive solar systems. Total capacity installed reached 6.45MWp (Megawatt peak).
- More than 3.2 million people – 51 percent of whom are female – have received services provided by critical facilities that are supported by solar systems, including access to water, educational services, and health care (including care for COVID-19).
- Suppliers, installers, and contractors have begun to gain awareness of the merits of quality products, as well as of design, implementation, and maintenance, resulting in better systems with longer-term sustainability. This increased capacity has helped improve measures to safeguard health, safety, security, and environmental (HSSE) aspects of solar energy equipment. When the project started, these were totally absent in all but a very few contractors.
World Bank Group Contribution
This World Bank IDA-financed project of $50 million was approved in April 2018.
To ensure close coordination and avoid duplication, the project team conducted monthly meetings with other development partners to discuss activities and geographical targeting. The project has built a more inclusive and sustainable solar market in Yemen through close cooperation with the MFIs.
The World Bank and other international organizations have helped provide solar energy solutions for rural and peri-urban health facilities, schools, and water facilities, and have encouraged the development of a private sector-driven market for renewable, off-grid electricity. But more must be done to improve access for rural and peri-urban households to electricity, and to improve it for critical services. In June 2022, the Bank approved an additional US$100 million for the second phase of the Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project, which is designed to improve access to electricity in rural and peri-urban areas in Yemen and to plan for the restoration of the country’s power sector. The grant will provide 3.5 million people, of whom an estimated 48% (1,680,000) are women and girls, with new or improved services to electricity. It will also provide around 700 public services facilities and 100 schools with new or improved electricity services, helping Yemenis to have better access to critical services.
The new project targets two main groups of direct beneficiaries and has additional indirect benefits to the solar market and the economy overall.
First, peri-urban and rural populations will benefit directly from the improvements in access to modern household energy, as well as indirectly from better access to services. The project is designed to reduce gender gaps related to access to energy and finance, thus benefiting women and girls.
Second, critical service providers — including health facilities, schools, and rural water corporations — will benefit from grant-financed solar systems. The project ultimately strengthens the service delivery capacity of the public sector.
Businesses along the solar value chain can also indirectly benefit from the project as they reap the rewards of having more access to higher-quality solar solutions as a result of the project’s market-strengthening measures. This will help both direct project beneficiaries as well as solar users in Yemen in general. With an estimated 20–30% of the investment value expected to remain in the local economy, the project also contributes to the creation of jobs, thus benefiting the Yemeni economy.