Addis Ababa, 23 February 2017 - The Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity is partnering with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to launch an annual competition for local enterprises on innovation around energy solutions for rural communities.

This year the top 30 competing enterprises will be given the chance to access technical assistance that would benefit their businesses as well as US$ 5,000 in grant. 

By 2020, the competition is expected to award up to 120 enterprises.

The competition for enterprises is part of a wider intervention financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) that promotes sustainable rural energy technologies (RETs) for households and productive uses. Replacing unsustainable biomass use with renewable energy and low greenhouse gas producing technologies is expected to reduce Ethiopia’s emissions from its energy use by two million CO2 tons. Four million Ethiopians (800,000 households) are expected to benefit from the project from over 200,000 small-scale solar home-system products and around 600,000 improved cook-stoves.

The RET project is in line with the global goals of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative  and brings together the Ministry of Water Irrigation and Electricity (MoWIE), Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (MoFECC), Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), UNDP and UNCDF.