OUR STRATEGIC APPROACH

Our points of departure when engaging with international development assistance are found within the environment and renewable energy sectors. Within these two sectors on-going climate changes and their impacts on already vulnerable communities and local authorities will form the back-drop of all programming and used as a leverage to work with local governance and democracy challenges.

Our strategic approach builds on three pillars: People first, The power of the example, and Facilitating the access to knowledge and capital.

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People first

PUTTING LOCAL CITIZENS AT THE CENTRE OF PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION.

There are no quick technological fixes to the challenges that confront the environment and the energy sector in developing countries. Working with sustainable natural resource management that is effective on the ground or working with informal settlements in urban areas calls for community involvement and de-centralised models of decision making. Top-down oriented approaches with little involvement of local stakeholders have failed in most cases.

The power of the example

USING THE EXAMPLE AS A CATALYST FOR CHANGE.

All human, social or technical investments will be assessed on its further ability to create dialogue with duty bearers, its ability to attract further revenue based national support and funding, its ability to generate and share knowledge and its ability to set examples that others can be inspired from. Insisting on gender-balanced approaches towards the partners is part of stating the good example. Programs all have gender incorporated as a cross-cutting issue including awareness with the partner on the consequences of male dominance in committees and various available mitigating measures to address such imbalances. 

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Facilitating the access to knowledge and capital

AS BOTH ARE OFTEN LIMITING FACTORS FOR POOR COMMUNITIES.

Having access to knowledge is still the privilege of the elite and the powerful. SustainableEnergy works to widen this circle and supports a plethora of activities from advocacy issues to more specific technical trainings. Whereas national legislation and strategies on natural resource management, energy related issues and poverty reduction are usually well developed the ability and knowledge to implement the good intentions is lacking. 

Access to credit facilities is essential for local environmental activities to take off the ground but where banks exist they demand collaterals that most people are unable to present. SustainableEnergy has since year 2000 supported the establishment of small saving groups designed to give access to affordable capital originating from and managed by the community itself. 

Working within and around the Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and goal 13 (Climate Action) are our first points of departure while carrying out programs and collaborations with partners. Our prime competences lie here. SustainableEnergy applies a rights-based approach to development and many of the principles for this are represented within our 2nd level SDG goals. These goals are also shared with most other CSO’s working for development.

Goal 10 (Reduced inequalities) expresses the mere reason for SustainableEnergy in the first place to engage in international development work and, when working with integrated development approaches sub-targets of other goals are also frequently addressed (e.g. targets of Goal 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) and Goal 15 (Life on land)). However, when supported they will contribute to achieve one or some of the mentioned primary goals.

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(Click on the highlighted goals to view more)

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