Page 32 - DHCI Magazine

‘An open and professional environment where organisations feel free to speak up and receive answers that they can work with.’
organisations, (local) companies, and other partners. This has spurred several innovations for clean energy in crisis conditions and environments. The urgency is great: worldwide more than a 130 million people are in need
of emergency humanitarian assistance due to such events as conflicts and natural disasters. Some 90 per cent of people living in refugee camps have no access to electricity and 80 per cent use firewood and charcoal for cooking, of which there is often insufficient supply. This has a major impact on people’s health, safety, and well-being. The scale of the issue is thus enormous, yet the attention it is attracting
is new. Marcel: ‘In the past, the energy issue was actually not well known anywhere within the humanitarian sector. But humanitarian
and emergency aid organisations are now increasingly aware of the fact that there is
much to be gained. The question is then, of course, how to realise an accessible, safe, and preferably sustainable energy supply for people in crisis situations. The AME programme was meant to find answers to these questions in an innovative way.’
Clarification of the issue
Marcel continues: ‘An important success of
the AME programme is that the issue is now much clearer to everyone.’ It is very important to have the issue clear to everyone if you want to work towards solutions that really matter, as Marcel explains: ‘The working method introduced by DCHI has contributed greatly to this. This shared vision has been the platform for taking action in a short period of time.’ If together you have a clear picture of the issue, you know where you want to go. Marcel: ‘That also means that you have to make a genuine start, and that is best done in cooperation with actors outside of your own sphere. Learning from and cooperating with players from the business sector and NGOs, finding and taking up projects, looking for investors, seeking complementarity and gathering different little,
Humanitarian Impact Re-imagined
Access to Modern Energy has been the first programme to practically demonstrate how the DCHI methodology leverages innovation. In its early days, DCHI operated as a collaborative consulting partner for innovation projects
in the humanitarian sector. However, with a small budget and number of people involved, its impact proved to be relatively limited. Later, work was done on the development, promotion, and co-implementation of a broadly applicable innovation methodology which helps organisations in the humanitarian sector to innovate effectively in synergy with their ecosystem.
Brokering and shifting gears
AME partner RVO is – among (many) other things – responsible for the implementation of government policies intended to support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7: ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy. As team manager, Marcel Raats is responsible for
the Global Public Goods team that focuses
32
on energy and climate change. His team implements programmes and projects that
aim to promote access to modern energy and encourage the energy transition in developing countries. Marcel: ‘We are one of the parties that are working towards the Dutch national target of helping 50 million people to gain access to clean energy by 2030 at the latest. To achieve this, we try to bring parties together
on various different issues and encourage cooperation. We achieve acceleration by means of, for example, talks, workshops, financing instruments, and by tapping into networks in the international energy world. You could say that we are brokering and shifting gears. All of this suits DCHI and its innovation methodology perfectly: in the AME project we have thus formed a very strong partnership.’
Energy challenge not a top-of-mind issue
In the Access to Modern Energy programme, Marcel’s team and DCHI have facilitated strong partnerships by building on an extensive ecosystem of NGOs, emergency relief