Powering Ahead: The United Nations and Somalia’s Renewable Energy Opportunity

Executive Summary

Somalia faces challenges that are among the most complex of any country in the world. More than 30 years after the state collapsed, efforts aimed at rebuilding a functioning government system, improving security, and expanding the economy continue to inch ahead in the face of a serious ongoing Al-Shabab insurgency and the growing impacts of climate change. Much of the international community’s support for these efforts comes through a joint effort by the United Nations (UN) peace and support missions (UNSOM and UNSOS, respectively), and an African Union (AU) peace operation (AMISOM). Yet there is an opportunity to accelerate one aspect of sustainable peace: expanding access to renewable energy. 

This report looks specifically at the major role energy plays in consolidating peace in Somalia. Somalia is among the least electrified countries in the world. According to the World Bank, the share of the population that has access to electricity is only 36 percent, and only 11 percent in rural areas. The country has a completely decentralized energy sector that has largely evolved in the absence of government and regulations, and is made up of dozens of mostly small, hyperlocal, privately owned energy companies, each operating mini-grids to electrify their communities. These are overwhelmingly powered by generators run on imported fossil fuel (diesel) despite the many negative consequences of this approach, including environmental (burning dirty, low-quality diesel); economic (one of the highest electricity costs in the world); and insecurity (al-Shabab controls and taxes nearly all diesel supply chains throughout the country, forming an important revenue source for the insurgency). Renewable energy offers an attractive option to expand new energy access to electricity in the country, and has growing support from both private sector and government backers. While a handful of successful renewable-energy projects have emerged, access to traditional financing poses a significant challenge for the sector and for ambitions around a larger transition to clean energy. 

The UN and AU missions play important roles in supporting governance, providing security, and helping move toward a transition to peace and sustainable development. While the specific institutional arrangements are unique to Somalia, the energy practices of the UN are similar to those in other international peace operations in fragile contexts; they are overwhelmingly dependent on diesel generators for power, and represent sizable energy footprints in the areas where they are deployed. Indeed, the UN alone has approximately 65 megawatts (MW) of generator capacity, while Somalia’s official energy figures show only 125 MW of total installed electricity generation capacity in the entire country. The UN’s dependence on diesel is expensive and detrimental to the environment, and it creates security vulnerabilities for both the UN and the AU. The UN is taking a proactive role toward climate change in Somalia, having introduced the first-ever role of climate security advisor to the UN mission. In addition, the UN system has set ambitious internal renewable-energy and climate targets through two separate initiatives, the UN Secretariat Climate Action Plan (UNSCAP) and Phase 2 of the UN Department of Operational Support (DOS) Environment Strategy for Peace Operations. However, much remains to be done to make progress toward achieving those goals. 

Building on these existing policy frameworks and ambitious climate goals, the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) has entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a commercial renewable-energy company in the town of Baidoa. Although PPAs are common in the private sector, this is the first instance of a UN peace operation entering into this type of arrangement. The PPA allows UNSOS to buy clean energy at a contracted term and price from a solar plant that will be financed and built by a private-sector entity. This commitment from the UN, along with a similar commitment from the local government of Southwest State, provides a way to leverage the UN’s considerable purchasing power to support new clean-energy projects coming online while avoiding the challenges associated with the attempt to finance, build, and manage such a project under the UN’s existing budget and procurement policies and practices. 

The PPA being tested in Baidoa offers a model for consideration in other sites in Somalia, as well as in other UN peace operations. The PPA model presents several notable benefits. First, it offers a way to rapidly scale the UN’s use of renewables, offering a viable pathway to meet its ambitious climate goals, including the UNSCAP goal of reaching 80 percent renewable-energy use by 2030. Second, the use of PPAs to leverage new private-sector investment can be scaled for renewable-energy projects across Somalia, helping to overcome a key capacity challenge for the national electrification strategy. Third, by extending the benefits of new energy access from UN missions to local communities, this strategy can support broader peace and development goals: it will reduce diesel tax revenue flowing to Al-Shabab, while supporting the numerous socioeconomic benefits associated with expanded energy access that are aligned with Somali federal and regional development plans.

Key Findings

First, Somalia is one of the least electrified countries in the world, a challenge that inhibits the country’s economic potential and sustainable growth. However, the government has the opportunity to expand access to energy, particularly through renewable energy, to support a range of development, security, economic, and climate goals in the country. This is a matter of importance to the UN, including member states and the Secretariat, the Somali government, and the people of Somalia. 

Second, Somalia’s energy sector is extremely decentralized, and distributed mini-grids offer the most feasible way to rapidly expand energy access. The energy sector comprises mostly small and localized private-sector electricity service providers, who have evolved in the absence of a functioning government or government structures. Diesel-powered, localized mini-grids dominate, with al-Shabab earning revenue from the taxation of diesel supply chains, among other things, all across the country. 

Third, renewable energy is feasible, offers numerous benefits to communities, and is drawing increasing interest from electricity service providers. Yet financing challenges are hindering growth, and the ability of the Federal Government and federal member states to help in this regard is limited. Somalia’s vibrant private sector has filled many of the gaps in services traditionally provided by government, but the country’s still low levels of electrification demonstrate the daunting challenges. Electricity service providers are increasingly interested in transitioning to renewable energy for both economic and environmental reasons, but the lack of a functioning banking sector makes the up-front financing requirements of renewable energy difficult to overcome. While a few promising examples have emerged, these are the exception rather than the rule. 

Fourth, the UN/UNSOS can play a role an important role in supporting Somalia’s energy transition, but faces institutional challenges of its own. The UN’s transition to renewable energy has started and is driven by a number of factors – from practical considerations, such as the need to cut costs and mitigate the security impacts of its current dependence on diesel, to the institutional commitments reflected in the UNSCAP and the DOS Environment Strategy. The UN faces a number of hurdles in implementing this transition in Somalia; while some are unique to Somalia, others are rooted in the organizational culture of the UN. In addition to gaps in resources and expertise, at both the field and headquarters levels, a major challenge is the disconnect between high-level objectives and the work of individuals on the ground. The responsibilities and expected contributions of units and individuals toward these organizational objectives remain undefined, and most of the progress made to date has been the result of efforts by individuals who proactively acted within the scope of their existing responsibilities to reduce the environmental impact of mission operations. If it can find ways to overcome these challenges, the UN can be an important partner and catalyst for new renewable-energy projects across Somalia and in other field missions, an outcome that would advance UN objectives on climate, environment, and peace and security. 

Fifth, successful models exist. The Baidoa PPA presents an exciting new model for UN peace operations to partner with private-sector companies to launch new renewable-energy projects, offering a way to benefit UN missions and local communities. The Baidoa PPA between UNSOS and Kube Energy, and separately the memorandum of understanding between Kube Energy and the government of Southwest State, is breaking important new ground for UN peace operations. By engaging as an energy consumer and outsourcing its energy generation to the private sector, UNSOS can mitigate many internal challenges that hinder renewable-energy transitions at scale in field missions. At the same time, this model leverages the considerable purchasing power of UNSOS to make project financing viable for the private-sector partner. The partnership of Kube Energy with the government of Southwest State creates the conditions for the project and expands its benefits well beyond UNSOS to local government and, ultimately, to local communities. This model could be scaled elsewhere in Somalia, and beyond, and the UN should immediately look to expand this model to other locations. 

Recommendations

To the United Nations Secretariat: 

• Update Mission Systems. The Secretariat, supported by the General Assembly and Security Council as appropriate, should take advantage of the transition from AMISOM to the new AU Transitional Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) to complete long-delayed processes, such as the review of contingent-owned equipment and the establishment of the joint environmental committee. 
• Share Knowledge of PPAs. The Department of Operational Support (DOS) should capture and document the lessons from the ongoing process of operationalizing the Baidoa PPA arrangement – which involves UNSOS, the regional government, and the private sector – and should share this knowledge widely across other peace operations and Secretariat departments. 
• Hire Climate Expertise. The position of climate security advisor, currently funded through extrabudgetary resources, is a valuable resource that applies a climate lens to both the substantive and support elements of the work of the UN. The post should be regularized in Somalia and introduced in other UN missions. 
• Build Knowledge. Gaps in capacity at headquarters and the field in areas such as climate security, implementation of renewable-energy systems, and environmental aspects of force generation and contingent-owned equipment should be identified and addressed through requests for additional resources or redeployment of existing resources. Where gaps in expertise are identified, these should be addressed through measures including dedicated recruitment drives or the potential establishment of standby capacities that can be deployed as required to support individual missions and other Secretariat entities in a similar manner to other standby capacities based out of the Global Service Centre in Brindisi, Italy. 
• Monitor Progress. Climate needs to be seen as an issue that transcends all lines of effort, whether substantive or support. In the Somalia context, a senior-level joint environmental committee that includes AMISOM should be established as a matter of priority, and one of its key responsibilities should be to monitor the implementation of the mission environmental action plan. 
• Stop Making Diesel the Default. For mission support planning, diesel generators should no longer be the default option for producing electricity. As part of a broader portfolio of alternatives, long-term standby arrangements should be explored with private-sector companies for renewable-energy projects. Because it is more difficult for troop- and police-contributing countries to adjust how they generate power than it is for the UN Secretariat to do so, mission support planning should shift as much of the responsibility to missions as is feasible.
• Calculate Full Costs. Climate security considerations need to be factored into military planning and force generation processes. Contingent-owned equipment and memorandum of understanding management review boards need to be proactive about challenging operational requirements for diesel generators and other fuel-consuming major equipment and communicating this information to headquarters to inform negotiations and amendments. 
• Expand Private-Public Partnerships. The Support Partnerships Service within the DOS at headquarters should adapt its triangular partnership program to include renewable energy. It should also actively engage with the private sector and with donor countries that provide training and equipment support to troop- and police-contributing countries to encourage a shift away from reliance on diesel by contingents. 
• Review Electricity Options. To better guide missions and other entities toward renewable-energy solutions, the existing arrangements at headquarters for the planning, sourcing, and acquisition of electricity should be reviewed. This review should also examine the existing portfolio of available systems contracts and ensure that contracts are also available to meet installation, maintenance, and disposal requirements. 

To the General Assembly:

• Meet UN Climate Targets – UNSCAP. In addition to supporting the recommendations proposed for the Secretariat, the General Assembly should hold the Secretariat and its entities accountable for meeting UNSCAP targets and for requesting information on progress to date, challenges faced, and plans to meet the targets. 

To the Working Group on Contingent-Owned Equipment (COE):

• Review Generator Standards. The 2023 Working Group on COE should consider reviewing standards for generators provided as major equipment, including the possibility of requiring fuel flow or kilowatt-hour (kWh) meters to inform regular contingent reporting on kWh consumed and carbon dioxide footprint. As an alternative, the working group can consider introducing an approach to the reimbursement of fuel-consuming major equipment in which equipment that is operational, but without functioning odometers or fuel meters, receives a lower rate of reimbursement than equipment that allows for the monitoring of fuel consumption. 
• Reconsider Existing Equipment Categories. The working group should also consider merging the electrical equipment category of self-sustainment into the accommodation category, as contingents also deploy generators for self-sustainment requirements under the category of electrical equipment, and such capacity is primarily for meeting the electricity requirements of camps. 
• Reinforce Accountability. In addition, the working group should establish that contingents should be accountable for the fuel that they receive from the UN, including for how the fuel is distributed, used, managed, and stored. 

To the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS):

• Strengthen Capacity at the MEWR. The FGS should continue to strengthen the technical capacity of the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources (MEWR) so that it can effectively regulate and provide oversight on the energy sector, especially electricity service providers (ESPs). 
• Harmonize Energy Policies. The FGS should strive to harmonize its energy policies with those of federal member states with a view toward creating a stronger collaborative framework between the two, and enabling the standardization of both the quality and prices of energy in Somalia.
• Incentivize Clean Energy. The FGS should allocate adequate resources to help the energy sector overcome prohibitive financing challenges and leapfrog toward renewable energy. The FGS should promote clean energy and regain its oversight and policy-setting role. Incentives could include tax forgiveness to spur on direct foreign investment and import of renewable-energy material into Somalia. 
• Promote Public-Private Partnerships. The FGS should promote public-private partnerships and provide legal support to foreign investors to help them navigate federal and state regulations, and to mobilize additional resources for the energy sector.
• Empower the Directorate of Environment. The FGS should transform the Directorate of Environment, currently at the Office of the Prime Minister, into a full-fledged ministry that has the political and legal clout as well as the resources to meaningfully lead on national environmental policies and strategies. 
• Create Annual Renewable Energy Targets. The FGS should set annual renewable-energy targets as well as annual price ranges for ESPs, and empower federal agencies to hold ESPs accountable to those targets. In doing so, the FGS would set clear benchmarks for ESPs and protect consumers from price hikes. 
• Prioritize Safety through Clear Standards. Putting safety at the center of policymaking, the FGS should set clear standards that compel ESPs to share electric distribution networks and wiring of consumer houses to reduce the number of fires related to poor wiring. Similarly, the FGS should set standards for fuel imported into the country. 
• Develop Skilled, Local Labor through Training. The FGS should establish technical and vocational education training (TVET) centers dedicated to the energy sector with the objective of creating a local skilled labor force that can support the sector. These centers should prioritize renewable energy.
• Increase Public Awareness. The FGS should launch a national public awareness campaign aimed at educating citizens about the severity of climate change and ways they can contribute to reducing the impact of climate change. 

To the Federal Member States:

• Establish Utilities Commissions. Member states should establish state utilities commissions that can regulate and provide oversight to ESPs. These commissions should cooperate closely with the MEWR on policy alignment and strategy.
• Set Standards and Prices. Member states should cooperate with the FGS on setting clear standards and a price range for fuel and electricity, ensuring that the safety of citizens is paramount in all policies, while promoting overall access to clean electricity. 
• Provide Incentives. Member states should promote renewable energy by providing catalytic resources to ESPs that meet federal and state targets. State incentives could include the provision of land for solar plants and wind farms, and agreed taxation frameworks to allow predictability for project investments. 
• Offer Training. Member states should establish TVET centers to train the next generation of workers who can contribute to the growth of the renewable-energy sector. 

To Electricity Service Providers (ESPs):

• Integrate Networks. ESPs should integrate their electric distribution networks in order to minimize duplication and maximize output. Parallel distribution networks are extremely inefficient and pose a safety hazard to citizens.
• Pivot to Renewables. ESPs should gradually reduce reliance on diesel generators and leapfrog to the use of solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and other renewable-energy sources. These alternatives have proven to be both commercially viable and environmentally sustainable.
• Collaborate on Regulations. ESPs should collaborate closely with federal and state regulatory authorities for a common objective, which is to provide clean, safe, and affordable energy to Somalia’s citizens. 
• Invest in Training. ESPs should invest in local TVET programs that can train highly skilled labor for the energy sector.
• Provide Customer Incentives. ESPs should incentivize renewable energy to their customers by offering discounts and other perks that attract more customers and raise awareness.