Select committee: International Development Committee
Recommendation 17
8th Report - Empowering Development: Energy Access for Communities
Published 14 Nov 2025
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee Aid for community-led energy All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The FCDO should adopt a multi-dimensional evaluation framework for community-led energy projects, that accounts for long-term equity, accessibility, and system legitimacy, by June 2026. To do so, it should support the collection of broader impact metrics through appropriate incentives. This should be the case irrespective of who is delivering the project funded by UK ODA, including development finance institutions. (Recommendation, Paragraph 58) 34 Clean Energy for Climate
From: International Development Committee, 8th Report - Empowering Development: Energy Access for Communities (HC 849), 14 November 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 22 January 2026 (deadline 14 January 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government gives a mixed response to the Committee's report, marking most recommendations "Partially Agree" and a smaller number "Agree", while stating it is unable to make firm commitments beyond FY25/26 budgets.
- On protecting energy access funding, it "intend[s] to continue this work" but says it is "not reasonable to expect that energy access investments can be fully protected" with ODA moving to 0.3% of GNI.
- It marks "Agree" on making inclusive community participation a condition of funding, and on a clear definition of clean energy, which it sets out as "Low and zero carbon energy generation sources" and which "does not include nuclear energy".
- It says it is "unable to commit" to reporting on GEDSI guidance implementation by June 2026, or to adopting a multi-dimensional evaluation framework by June 2026, with any decision depending on "future resourcing beyond FY25/26".
- On multi-year funding, it "aim[s] to prioritise multi-year planning and greater programming predictability, subject to future years’ budget allocations".