- Date
- 12th March 2025
- Categories
- Event
The Sustainable Energy for All Global Forum, being held in Bridgetown, Barbados, from 12-13 March 2025, is co-hosted by Sustainable Energy for All and the Government of Barbados, led by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Under the theme of “Sustainable Energy for Equity, Security and Prosperity”, this year’s Forum focuses on catalysing the actions and investment needed for countries to achieve their energy access, climate and development goals. The Forum will take stock of progress, showcase success, identify solutions, broker new partnerships and spur investment towards realizing Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) by 2030 and a global clean energy transition.
The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme and partners have a strong presence at the global forum, where Dr Simon Batchelor OBE and Dr Anna Clements of MECS are speaking in high-level events, promoting the importance of accelerating the global transition to clean, electric cooking to achieve SDG7 by 2030. The UKaid (FCDO) funded MECS programme is one of the sponsors of the global forum.
‘Digital Tools for Sustainable Energy Access’ session, 12 March, 16:00-17:30 AT
Achieving universal access to electricity and clean cooking solutions, as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, requires innovative approaches to planning, implementation, and monitoring. Digital tools, particularly energy modeling and geospatial analysis tools, are instrumental in accelerating energy access efforts by providing data-driven insights that enable more efficient, cost-effective, and scalable interventions.
The session ‘Digital Tools for Sustainable Energy Access’ to be held on 12 March, seeks to understand how emerging technologies can be effectively harnessed to support sustainable energy access planning in underserved regions, promote economic development, and facilitate energy transitions? Participants will be introduced to digital tools, planning concepts and geospatial technologies used in planning for electrification and clean cooking access.
Dr Anna Clements, MECS Research Associate, will speak alongside Dr. Dimitris Mentis, Energy Access Explorer Lead, World Resources Institute and Dr. Cristina Dominguez, Project Director of Sustainable Energy for Productivity and Prosperity, NRECA International in the session. Session instructors include Dr. Andreas Sahlberg, Geospatial Data and Energy Modelling Officer, SEforALL, Dr. Babak Khavari, Senior Officer – Clean Cooking, SEforALL, and Mr. Julian Cantor, Energy Planning Analyst, SEforALL.
‘Powering Progress: How Mini-grids, Clean Cooking and Energy Planning can Fast-track SDG7’ session, 13 March, 9:00-10:30 AT
This session amplifies the ambition and increased investment needed to end energy poverty. It also identifies pathways to increase the scale and ambition of off-grid electrification and clean cooking investments, while putting developing countries on a path to achieve SDG7 by 2030 and net zero emissions. Speakers for the session include Simon Batchelor OBE of MECS, Atheer Khalifah (Middle East Green Initiative – Forward7 Clean Cooking), Samira Bawumia (Former Second Lady of Ghana, Republic of Ghana), Nawaf Alfallaj (Middle East Green Initiative – Forward7 Clean Cooking), Olamide Niyi-Afuye (Africa Mini-Grid Developers Association), Rachel Sedacy (GFA Consulting Group GmbH), Gabriela Elizondo Azuela (The World Bank), and Kandeh Yumkella (Government of Sierra Leone).