Understanding the Peace Effects of P-REC Funded Streetlights in Goma, DRC
Publisher: Energy Peace Partners
Date: 2022
Topics: Basic Services, Gender, Livelihoods, Monitoring and Evaluation, Peace and Security Operations
Countries: Congo (DRC)
In May – June 2022, Energy Peace Partners (EPP) travelled to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo to start gathering data on the peace benefits of Peace Renewable Energy Credit (P-REC) funded renewable energy projects.
EPP, the I-REC authorized issuer for the DRC, has worked with Nuru since 2020 to register and issue P-RECs from multiple Nuru solar projects in the country and has helped facilitate the sale of Nuru’s P-RECs to corporate buyers like Microsoft and Google. Microsoft’s 2020 purchase of P-RECs from Nuru’s 1.3MW solar mini-grid financed an additional ‘social impact’ project, in the form of the deployment and connection of streetlights in the Ndosho neighbourhood of Goma. The streetlights were turned on in March 2020.
The data collection piloted EPP’s monitoring and evaluation framework, focusing on a comparative assessment of two neighbourhoods: Ndosho, the beneficiary of the P- REC financed project, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Mugunga, which has no public lighting and generally very low levels of electrification. Nuru will be expanding its electricity provision to Mugunga in the very near future through its Goma II initiative (a larger solar mini-grid being built in Goma).
The data collection effort involved a combination of household surveys and focus group discussions, and was subsequently analysed using EPP’s ‘Positive Peace Calculator’ methodology to generate estimates of SDG indicators (short- and medium-term outcomes in EPP’s theory of change), as well as positive peace scores (longer-term impacts in EPP’s theory of change).