USAID recently awarded Making Cents a Task Order to conduct a financial landscape assessment of the renewable energy and efficient energy sectors in the Caribbean under the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Services II IDIQ. The Caribbean is highly dependent on imported oil despite great potential to generate energy via renewable and clean sources such as solar, wind, hydropower, and ocean thermal energy conversion. USAID is considering establishing a fund to support private sector investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency to boost energy resilience and overcome roadblocks to growth, stability, and self-reliance, and is seeking a better understanding of the current landscape for RE/EE projects in the Caribbean to further US Government climate change and energy goals.
Making Cents will conduct a desk review of the political environment around the energy sector and a study of the sector’s landscape of public actors and private investors. The desk review will include an assessment of existing private and public funding sources, financing conditions, technologies covered, size and geography of projects supported, and financial gaps and opportunities. From this desk review, Making Cents will provide recommendations and identify priority areas and mechanisms to assess further.
The second phase of the activity will involve a deeper investment landscape analysis for three to four countries in the Caribbean identified through discussion with USAID. The resulting data will be analyzed with an inclusive lens with a special focus on marginalized populations, including women, the LGBTQ community, migrants, and others to identify their unique barriers to access to finance and investment opportunities in the energy sector. This landscape assessment will inform and support future renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in the region and provide evidence-based recommendations to USAID’s Mission in the Dominican Republic to boost energy resilience and increase growth, stability, and self-reliance in the region.