Practical Action's new report highly relevant to Ashden winners

Practical Action’s inaugural Poor People's Energy Outlook - published today - discusses the energy poverty of more than 1.5 billion people in terms that are highly relevant to the Ashden Awards and Ashden winners. The report:

- highlights the inefficiency of countries having a national, grid-based energy plan/framework rather than thinking about decentralised power

- stresses that inefficient cookstoves waste time, money and damage health

- criticises the huge lack of information and access at community/local levels for affordable sustainable energy

- emphasises that energy access is a basic precondition for development

- outlines a ‘minimum standard’ of energy access for households worldwide.

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Sunlabob and Practical Action win UNEP Sasakawa prize

Two of the 2007 Ashden Award winners, Sunlabob and Practical Action, have been awarded the 2008 Sasakawa prize by the United Nations Environment Programme.

From the UNEP press release:

The UNEP Sasakawa prize, worth $200,000, is awarded yearly to individuals or institutions who have made a substantial contribution to the protection and management of the environment. The winners, who will each receive $100,000, were chosen by a five-member jury from a shortlist of six projects at a meeting in Tokyo.

The Prize acts as an incentive for grassroots environmental efforts that are sustainable and replicable. It recognizes extraordinary initiatives from around the world that make use of innovation and groundbreaking research and ideas and empower people at the local level.

This year's theme for the award was 'Moving towards a low carbon economy', the theme of World Environment Day 2008. The shortlist included four other outstanding projects bringing clean energy to thousands of people, from families in the Philippines to rural households in South India and prisons in Rwanda.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Addressing the monumental energy challenge of the 21st century involves practical projects at ground level that bring tangible changes to the way people live. Sunlabob and Practical Action are showing tremendous leadership in bringing clean energy to remote communities in Peru and Lao PDR, and in doing so they are setting further examples of the energy alternatives available to the developing but also the developed world."

Click here to read more about the Sasakawa Prize

Click here to read more about the Ashden Awards

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