Learning from the grassroots innovators who connect people to sustainable energy

Our mission

UNDP powered by its Accelerator Labs and the Sustainable Energy Hub is celebrating and learning from grassroots innovators and their sustainable energy solutions to address energy poverty.

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#peoplepowered: Early-stage solutions by grassroots innovators that bring clean energy to remote and vulnerable populations.

Many women and men innovate in the margins, solving problems for their communities. We are on a mission to learn and celebrate how local grassroots innovators connect communities to sustainable, reliable and affordable energy sources.

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Understanding the Transformative Potential of Grassroots Energy Solutions

A publication in collaboration with the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and the UNDP Accelerator Labs. Access to energy remains a concerning challenge for many worldwide, and grassroots innovation presents a valid solution to this challenge. This document presents a comprehensive normative framework for analyzing bottom-up innovations, the Grassroots Thinking Approach. Through this approach, we aim to provide criteria for assessing the contextual factors in which grassroots solutions emerge and exist, the characteristics of the innovation and its goodness of fit or appropriateness within the system that it exists in, and elements for ‘success.’

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Help us map and celebrate grassroots energy innovators worldwide. If you have a local energy solution contact us or connect with the UNDP Accelerator Lab in your country.