Archive DEO-DAY: Debate on Energy and Development
Archive with reports and descriptions of previous ‘DEO-days’
10 June 2004
“Public Private Partnerships: the best way to provide
energy services to the poor?”
Last year’s discussion focused on the concept of Public Private Partnerships (PPP’s) regarding energy supply for the poor in relation to Dutch sustainable development policy.
For a full report of the DEO2004 click here.
Background
PPP’s are a relatively new but eagerly adopted concept in the realm of
development co-operation. PPP’s refer to the collaboration between public
entities and private companies to realise public projects and objectives.
The recent popularity of the concept in the field of international
co-operation partly emerged at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD), where the need to increase the involvement of the
private sector in the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals was
discussed. The enthusiasm for PPP's in international co-operation rests on
the idea that a combination of the cost-efficiency and sector specific
knowledge in the private sector with the social and environmental consciousness
of the public sector will result in successful development projects.
For this
year’s DEO-day the policy of the Dutch Ministry of International Co-operation
(DGIS) will serve as a framework for the lectures and discussions. In the DGIS
document ‘Bridging the Energy Gap’, an outline of Dutch development goals is
stated in relation to the WSSD. In this context, the Dutch support aims at
providing affordable and reliable energy services to 10 million poor people
by 2015. PPP's are envisioned as an important instrument to achieve this goal.
Focus
On this DEO-day we want to emphasise both the opportunities and the
bottlenecks that PPP’s imply for energy supply in developing countries. A
particular bottleneck focuses on the participation of the end users in the
decision making process. This question has been raised before to demonstrate
that development aid often has been the result of technocratic decisions made
by people far away from ‘the field’, and that consequently the transfer and
implementation of technologies and knowledge was regularly far from successful.
On the DEO-day we want to investigate a new angle of this old problem: how is
the consultation of the actual end user taken care of in the forging of PPP's?
Can it be assumed that the market mechanisms underlying the ‘private’ element
in this approach will improve the representation of the end-users needs? At
the end of the DEO-day, the discussion will be translated into terms that are
relevant for the earlier mentioned Dutch DGIS policy.
Programme
The DEO-day aims to contribute to the discussion on PPP's from a neutral, a
critical and a positive angle. It is an all day event with a morning programme
that starts with an introduction on the opportunities and bottlenecks surrounding
PPPs. The morning programme will start with an introduction on the opportunities and bottlenecks surrounding PPPs. This will
be followed by presentations from three speakers looking at PPPs from
different angles. Each presentation will allow for short discussions
afterwards. In the afternoon the participants will be divided into three
parallel workshops representing the ‘public’, ‘private’ and ‘civil’ groups.
At the end of this meeting, the results will be discussed in a final forum.
Of course lunch is not forgotten and those who are tired of discussing or
those who cannot get enough of it, are all invited to have a drink afterwards.
(more detailed day programme will follow)
Flyer and registration
For more detailed information, download the flyer
here. To register, fill in the
registration form
and send it in an email to aanmeldenDEO@hotmail.com.
Committee
Last year’s DEO-day was organized by the following five enthusiastic volunteers
(click on the name to send an email):
- Clement Roos
- Roselyne van der Heul
- Ruth Mourik
- Henry Heine
- Bastiaan Teune
For any questions, please contact one of us!
8 November 2002
“Liberalising the Energy Sector in Developing Countries:
Solving Problems for the Poor?”
In a morning session, Ian Tellam of ‘not for profit’
consultancy ETC Energy gave an update of the background of this
issue. He concentrated on the two dominant organizations in this
debate: the Worlbank and IMF. Especially the insights in internal
aspects of the Worldbank were clarifying. For the afternoon, an
expert debate, chaired by Jos Bruggink (ECN), was planned. Joyeeta
Gupta (IVM VU) was a guarantee for a infinite waterfall of words
to extinguish the fire of world poverty. Willem van Groenendaal
(University of Tilburg) is, under strict conditions, convinced of
the use of liberalization. Unfortunately, Tractabel’s speaker,
representing the business sector, didn’t come. On top of that,
Daniël Chavez of the Transnational Insitute had to call off,
because he was ill. Nevertheless, Ian Telling was willing to stand-in
to keep discussion broad.
The topic appeared many-sided, such that convergence of discussion
was difficult. What did come out was that many people see the force
and usefulness of the influence of mayor international companies.
However, they are shivery to give them too much power. Distributed
generation of energy on a small scale, by local producers, was seen
as an important direction of solutions. Another possibly fruitful
condition for solutions is an honoust world market, in which prices
are related to real costs. Only after that, liberalization can take
of.
For a more detailed report on DEO2002, see Newsletter May March 2003, page 2, in Dutch, topic ‘Niet echt een blij instituut’.
4 february 2000
“Is Sustainability a Necessary Criterion for Climate
Policy?”
The subject was whether it would be wishful and practical to attach sustainability criteria to our Climate Policy, with special emphasis on CDM. DEO2000 started with a morning program for YES-DC members, where two role playing games were held. The Debate itself kicked-off in the afternoon, guided by the chairman Prof. E. Boeker, previously attached as Rector to the Vrij Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam. The three invited speakers representing different regions. For Developing Countries, this was Prof. dr.K.K. Prasad, editor of Energy for Sustainable Development (ESD). For Climate, Drs. S.P.C. Schöne, manager Climate of World Wide Fund (WWF) was the spokesperson. Industrialised Countries were represented by Drs. W. Keurentjes, general director of Lagerwey the Windmaster. After a short introduction by Prof. Boeker, the speakers presented their views on the topic. Prasad elaborated on poverty alleviation, the need for equity, the validation of climate models and developing countries not being concerned about long-term strategies. Schöne discussed already measurable effects of climate change and using forests as sinks. Keurentjes, through discussing several priorities and assets in historical perspective, came to the conclusion that the time is right to focus on innovative ideas. The discussion following the speeches focused on the practical implications of theoretically desired aims and effects of CDM. It made clear that in practical terms, there is still doubt on CDM’s workability: a lot of conditions still have to be worked out! Definitely there seems to be a need for government control an guidance, as well as a watertight control system.
For a more detailed report on DEO2000, see Newsletter May 2000.
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