Page - (000225) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

In reality, as somecase studies showed, theenergy sector and theDREprojects are vulnerable to extreme climate events and in consequence can increase or decrease the vulnerability of the populations they serve. DRE projects are vulnerable to extreme weather events, but can also be designed to enable adaptive capacity for example through coordinated and equitable use ofwater in awatershed. 3. Poor technical designs and lack of appropriate operation andmaintenance pro- tocols and practices have prevented DRE projects from meeting their stated goals. This issue highlights the importance of government regulation or certifi- cation that ensures quality and safety codes and standards to avoid deceitful practices such as sellingbadquality and/or pirate/fake components.Even if the systems are privately owned, there should be government controls in place and anaccountabilitysystemsonot ‘anybody’caninstallsystemswithouthavingthe appropriate knowledge, training and licenses. Most of the Central American countries have adopted theUSNational Electric Code (NEC) although not all have implemented it. Donors and governments implementing DRE projects should require thecompliancewith suchcodes andstandardsaswell asproduct listing.Besides requiring theuseofcode-compliantcomponentsandequipment, donors and governments should ensure that project installers are also licensed and certified, ensuring project sustainability and a better use of limited devel- opment budgets.Moreover, code compliancewill ensure that userswill not be harmed in anyway, nor taken advantageofmonetarily. 4. One common response received frommany system users and technicians was the need for more intense and periodic training sessions to ensure systems remain functioning.Twopolicy recommendations are suggested: • Setaminimumrequiredbudget for socializationand trainingactivitiesas the current spending level for this topic is not sufficient to cover users’ needs. Some government officials interviewed indicated the need to spend up to 10%of the total infrastructure budget on training. • Aid program indicators tend prioritize first and foremost the number of beneficiariesor systemusers.Becauseof this,donorsare reluctant toallocate additional budget towards training activities. During the interviews, some indicated thiswas unrealistic as therewere specific goals for systembenefi- ciaries and re-allocating budgets wouldmean a smaller number of systems installed which might be interpreted as inefficient use of the budget. This point has greater implications if program evaluation was carried out more periodically:whensystemsstopworkingandcommunities relyonceagainon traditional energy sources, statistics are notmodified to reflect this and aid programs do not target these populations anymore as they are already con- sidered ‘electrified’or ‘benefitted’. To bemost effective, indicatorsmust be both qualitative andquantitative (GEF2005;Krause andNordstr€om2004). 5. In rural indigenouspopulations inwhichotherbelief systemsexist, suchaswith Mayan populations, donors and developers need an understanding of the cul- tural, political, economic and social differences to ensure that the appropriate 11 SustainableDevelopment,ClimateChange, andRenewableEnergy inRural. . . 209