Recommendation 4

HM Government Accepted

Agree 21. The FCDO recognises that insufficient community engagement can undermine the effectiveness, sustainability, and equity of energy access projects. The FCDO promotes community engagement through inclusive models such as cooperatives, public-private partnerships, and locally governed projects. In our interventions, we place Gender, Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) principles at the centre of our approach, ensuring value for money in delivery, while addressing systemic barriers like financing gaps, regulatory hurdles, and infrastructure limitations. 1 https://www.bii.co.uk/en/news-insight/insight/articles/how-does-access-to-green- energy-transform-rural-communities-insights-from-virunga-energies/ Our Centre of Expertise in Green Cities, Infrastructure and Energy has developed a GEDSI toolkit that has attracted extensive interest from partners and is being piloted in the energy sector in Zambia. 22. Programmes like TEA and MECS include a focus on local partnerships and inclusive design, for example supporting local researchers and innovators to participate in wider regional calls for proposals and build partnerships with UK and other international researchers and innovators. 23. The FCDO is also investing in locally led action and equitable partnerships, with a dedicated study commissioned in 2025 across the Ayrton Fund portfolio to identify best practices and gaps in community engagement. This work will inform future clean energy innovation programming and help ensure that community voices are central to project design and delivery. 24. We recognise the importance of inclusive community participation across all stages of design, governance, and implementation, and we actively promote these principles in our energy access programmes. Current FCDO guidance and delivery models encourage participatory approaches, including gender and social inclusion, and require partners to demonstrate engagement with local stakeholders. Conclusion and Recommendation 5 (Conclusion 6, paragraph 44) Energy projects are often technology- driven, which heightens the risks associated with limited local ownership and maintenance capacity. Emphasis should not be placed on rapid deployment or narrow output targets, but rather on meaningful community involvement. When engagement is top-down or superficial, legitimacy, sustainability, and long-term impact are compromised. Government Response 25. We recognise that technology-driven energy projects can face challenges around local ownership and maintenance. To address this, our approach prioritises meaningful community engagement, capacity-building, and co-design with local stakeholders. This ensures that solutions are not only deployed effectively but remain sustainable and locally managed over the long term. Looking ahead, we see emerging technologies such as AI as having the capacity to streamline processes and improve efficiency. As we adapt to these capabilities, we will ensure that community-based approaches remain central to project design and delivery, balancing innovation with legitimacy, resilience, and lasting impact. (Recommendation 5, paragraph 46) We recognise that there is sometimes a gap between the accountability expectations of donors and the capacity of local implementers. We recommend that in the next six months the FCDO reviews its accountability frameworks ensuring they are fit for purpose and makes sure resources are available to support local implementers to meet the appropriate and realistic requirements and develop their ability to handle international funding. Government Response: Partially Agree 26. The FCDO’s Programme Operating Framework (PrOF)2 sets out requirements for projects delivering UK ODA to ensure strong protections and safeguards across all funded activities. These requirements include comprehensive measures to prevent and address fraud, corruption, sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment, and other forms of misconduct. They also establish standards for financial management, ethical behaviour, and the protection of vulnerable groups, with the overarching aim of maintaining the highest levels of integrity, accountability, and safety throughout the delivery chain. These requirements apply to all projects and downstream agreements; not only to energy access-related projects. We recognise that it can be very difficult for some local, and especially small and early-stage, implementers to meet these requirements and that this can be a barrier to inclusion of local partners. Recognising the importance of an increasing shift to local leadership in the coming period, it may be that these requirements will be reviewed, there will rightly continue to be a strong degree of priority on managing fiduciary risks, safeguarding etc, and due diligence and reporting expectations are unlikely to significantly reduce. 27. In this context, the most pragmatic response may be to leverage our downstream delivery chain. This means continuing to use lar