wPOWER Newsletter: February 2018
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FROM THE wPOWER HUB DESK:
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The India Energy Access Summit
The India Energy Access Summit ( IEAS ) was held from Feb 12 - 13, 2018 in New Delhi, India. Director of Strategic Partnerships, Dr. Linda Davis, gave a presentation on engaging women across the decentralized renewable energy (DRE) value chain. She also participated in a panel session titled “Prosperity and Growth through Jobs and Skilling”, which delved into the potential of DRE for job creation, and the crucial linkage of skills and capacity development for alleviating rural poverty and boosting economy. Read more
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NEW wPOWER PARTNER
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Lifeline Energy
We are proud to welcome Lifeline Energ y to our partnership! Lifeline Energy is a non-profit social enterprise that designs, manufactures and distributes solar-powered and wind-up media players and radios for classroom and community listening. Since 1999, they’ve distributed over 600,000 solar and wind-up MP3 players and radios throughout sub-Saharan Africa and beyond .
PARTNER HIGHLIGHTS
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IN THE NEWS
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wPOWER Partners received the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstove Award.
We would like to congratulate our partners: LivelyHoods and Project Gaia for winning the Women’s Empowerment Fund and Humanitarian Clean Cooking Fund respectively. The Women’s Empowerment Fund (WEF), in its fourth year, serves to scale effective, gender-informed business models that empower women energy entrepreneurs and increase access to clean cooking solutions. The Humanitarian Clean Cooking Fund  will support its first round of grantees to scale up projects working to increase access to cleaner, more efficient fuels and cooking technology for crisis-affected people, such as refugees and internally displaced persons. Read more
Mastercard and M-KOPA solar partner to electrify homes and businesses in Africa
Mastercard and M-KOPA have announced a partnership that will establish a simple way for people to light up their homes and businesses. M-KOPA, is providing rent-to-own solar energy products that will help provide affordable solar power to rural homes. M-KOPA will pilot Mastercard’s Quick Response (QR) payment technology in Uganda to extend the reach of its pioneering pay-as-you-go solar program. Read more
How solar access is improving lives in Africa
130 million families in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity, limiting their chances of achieving economic prosperity and improved quality of life. Energise Africa aims to provide clean and renewable energy to 111,000 rural homes in sub-Saharan Africa, currently without access to electricity. Watch their new video (left) on how solar access is improving lives in sub-Saharan Africa.
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BLOGS
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Efforts growing to provide displaced populations with renewable energy
By Peyton Fleming

The number of forcibly displaced people has doubled globally in the past two decades, reaching a new high of 65.6 million in 2017. Roughly a third of these people live in refugee camps, which have little or no electricity or clean cooking fuels. The good news is that there are business models and technology that will mobilize finance and create clean energy access to these people. Read more.
Basic Energy Need Makes for Big Market Opportunity
By Jean-Yves Garnier, Ashley Pettus and Marilyn Smith

The global net benefits of switching from traditional to improved and/or clean cookstoves  have been estimated  at $43 billion to $166 billion a year if there’s a 50 percent adoption of improved cookstoves and 50 percent adoption of liquefied petroleum gas. A complete shift move to LPG represents additional net benefits of between $11 billion to $100 billion. The business opportunity is substantial . Read more
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SELECT PUBLICATIONS
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MIT, wPOWER and Solar Sister Report: Reaching the last mile - Women’s social and sustainable energy entrepreneurship
wPOWER Report: Women in Energy
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves report: Strengthening supply chains a handbook for cooking fuel enterprises.

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UPCOMING EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
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Do you want to contribute to our next edition or write an article? 
Contact our communications team at  [email protected] . 
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About the Partnership on Women's Entrepreneurship in Renewables (wPOWER)
Partnership on Women's Entrepreneurship in Renewables (wPOWER) was established by the U.S Department of State in January 2013. wPOWER is promoting the central role of women in clean energy entrepreneurship, and in addressing climate change.

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