The Private Sector Development Programme has five components: the Business Enabling Environment Programme (BEEP), the Malawi Oilseeds Sector Transformation Programme (MOST), the Business Innovation Facility (BIF), and the Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund (MICF) and the Monitoring and Evaluation component. The first four programmes were hampered in some way by external factors during the year under review, including a near total rain failure during the 2015/2016 cultivation season, power shortages that resulted in daily blackouts lasting up to 16 hours.

GET.invest is a European programme which supports investments in decentralised renewable energy. The programme targets private sector business and project developers, financiers and regulators to build sustainable energy markets in developing countries. Services include market information, a funding database, matchmaking events and access-to-finance advisory. The programme is supported
by the European Union, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria, and works closely with initiatives and business associations in the energy sector. GET.invest runs on the multi-donor platform

The Digital Energy Facility is an EU-funded programme, implemented by the Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency).

The energy sector faces a major transformation from a centralised system to a decentralised network, mono-directional to multi-directional, carbon-based to decarbonised, infrastructure centered to consumer-centric network.

The CHOICES (Community and Household Options In Choosing Energy Services) project in South Africa's Eastern Cape sought to enable communities to make sustainable energy choices that reduced energy poverty and stimulated local development. The project focused on building local people's capacity to participate in identifying and exploring locally appropriate energy options with greater community benefits. 

The IEA has launched the four-year cross-agency Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks Initiative (3DEN), which is working to identify the policy, regulation, technology and investments needed to accelerate progress on power system modernisation and effective utilisation of distributed energy resources.

Universal energy access is one of the driving forces in alleviating poverty and ensuring sustainable and inclusive economic growth. The IEA World Energy Outlook, however, shows that close to 600 million people remain without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. This number rose in 2020 due to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing progress observed in recent years. A delayed recovery would see the number of individuals without access to electricity increase from almost 600 to 630 million by 2030.

The Clean Energy Ministerial Hydrogen Initiative (CEM H2I) has currently 21 participating countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, European Commission, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, United Kingdom and United States.

“An Affordable and Sustainable Energy System for Sub-Saharan Africa” (Energy Sub-Saharan Africa) is a 4-year (2019-2023) programme funded by the European Union that is designed to support the aspirations of selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve their energy data management and long-term energy planning.

The Global Energy Transformation Programme (GET.pro) is a European multi-donor platform that delivers on international energy and climate goals. Founded by the European Union and the member states Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria in 2018, GET.pro supports the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which enters into force on 1 January 2019, will help protect the climate by phasing down high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are commonly used as refrigerants. Promoting energy efficiency of cooling technology can significantly increase those climate co-benefits.