Exchange: Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange on the EDM Participatory Approach to Designing Energy Services in Indonesia

Many energy services in remote areas targeting the “last mile” fail. This is for a variety of reasons, including insufficient attention to the long-term costs of operation and maintenance; use of a “one size fits all” approach which often fails to consider differing local realities and socio-cultural factors (including gender issues); lack of attention to how an energy service will deliver wider development impact; and lack of buy-in from local stakeholders. Building on these insights, since 2014 IESR – with its partners CAFOD and IIED – has been co-developing a participatory approach to designing energy services in Southeast Asia called the Energy Delivery Model (EDM). The project has involved: research into the energy access context in Indonesia, Myanmar and Cambodia; dissemination of the findings through country-level workshops with key stakeholders; and an introductory training workshop on EDM with participants from the Indonesian government, NGOs and CBOs. The final phase involved piloting the EDM with a community in Flores Island, NTT Province, co-partnering with the indigenous people’s organisation AMAN. This process resulted in the development of an EDM “Toolkit”, comprising a six-step participatory design process and two innovative tools (Delivery Model Canvas and Delivery Model Map) which can be adapted for use in different contexts by local practitioners and stakeholders. In Indonesia, the previous EDM project (an introductory workshop, a pilot design and a practitioner workshop in July 2017) involved several organisations working on delivering energy services to last-mile groups and served as a stimulus for further action. These groups identified their own knowledge gaps in inclusive energy service planning tools and approaches, expressing their interest in the potential of using the EDM for interventions they are planning. Consequently, they requested further training. Over the course of six months, IESR will:

• Prepare and host a four-day EDM Planning Workshop in Indonesia (inviting 15-20 participants from NGOs, social enterprises & local government), which will build an understanding of the participatory design of energy services, as well as capacity to use the existing EDM Toolkit;
• Create an updated Indonesian language version of the EDM Toolkit.