APEC Project Database

Project Title

APEC Workshop on Promoting Biomass Energy for Rural and Remote Area Development

Project Year

2023

Project Number

EWG_203_2023A

Project Session

Session 2

Project Type

Standard

Project Status

Completed Project

Project No.

EWG_203_2023A

Project Title

APEC Workshop on Promoting Biomass Energy for Rural and Remote Area Development

Project Status

Completed Project

Fund Account

APEC Support Fund

Sub-fund

ASF: Energy Efficiency, Low Carbon and Energy Resiliency Measures (EELCER)

Project Year

2023

Project Session

Session 2

APEC Funding

100,000

Co-funding Amount

12,000

Total Project Value

112,000

Sponsoring Forum

Energy Working Group (EWG)

Topics

Energy

Committee

SOM Steering Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE)

Other Fora Involved

Other Non-APEC Stakeholders Involved

Proposing Economy(ies)

Viet Nam

Co-Sponsoring Economies

China; Japan; Philippines; Chinese Taipei; United States

Expected Start Date

01/01/2024

Expected Completion Date

31/01/2025

Project Proponent Name 1

VU Lien Huong

Job Title 1

Head of Division

Organization 1

Ministry of Industry and Trade, Viet Nam

Telephone 1

+842422205522

Email 1

PATBEO81@GMAIL.COM

Project Proponent Name 2

Not Applicable

Job Title 2

Not Applicable

Organization 2

Not Applicable

Telephone 2

Not Applicable

Email 2

Not Applicable

Declaration

VU Lien Huong

Project Summary

Rural and remote area is one of a major part contributing to the development of one economy. Therefore, rural and remote area development has received much attention recent years. However, most people living in rural areas of developing APEC economies are currently do not have proper and regular access to energy. This affects the quality of living as well as the development of rural and remote areas. One solution to this problem is making use of plants, crops, etc. which are abundant in rural/remote area to create energy. Promoting biomass energy is an effective way to contribute to the development of rural and remote area. This project aims to hold a 2-day Workshop in Viet Nam in 2024 that help APEC stakeholders to share experiences and good practices in promoting biomass energy for rural and remote development as well as develop a set of recommendation on renewable energy policies, especially biomass energy while developing economy.

List of all project outputs

1. Workshop

2. Project Summary Report

Relevance

Benefits to Region: Biomass energy is among the popular topics in many forums when talking about the renewable energy. Biomass is a widely available source of energy when its sources come from trees and plants such as grasses, waste and landfill gases. Forest residues can also be used to generate energy, heat, and potentially even liquid fuels. Biomass has many advantages over fossil fuel due to its reduction of carbon emissions. When combining economic and environmental character of biomass energy, it is listed as one of the best energy sources. With an abundance of plants on Earth, biomass could be a source of renewable energy that’s used as sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. In developing economies, biomass energy accounts for about 34% of the total energy both in traditional and modern forms. However, in some economies, it provides over 90% of total energy consumption. This data shows that biomass energy plays an important role in energy sector of economies, especially developing ones.

As the source of biomass coming from plants, people in rural and remote area can make use of wastes from crops to produce energy. Bioenergy and rural and remote area development are closely connected. Bioenergy can make a significant contribution to social and economic development in rural and remote areas. The development in rural and remote area is significantly affected by the amount and quality of available energy. Promoting biomass will create more energy. The increase in the amount of energy then brings a lot of benefits as it provides essential services such as cooking, lightning, transport and support industrial development. In short, promoting biomass energy will eventually benefit the whole economy, especially contribute to the development of rural and remote area.

This project aims to hold a 2-day Workshop in Viet Nam in 2023 that helps APEC and non – APEC economies and stakeholders to share experiences and good practices in promoting biomass energy for rural and remote development as well as develop a set of recommendation on renewable energy policies, especially biomass energy while developing economy.

Over the recent years, in APEC Energy Working Group, economies have implemented activities to achieve the objective of building the capacity of APEC members to strengthen domestic and regional energy security. However, there has not been a focused activity on promoting biomass energy for rural and remote area development. This project will seek to contribute useful recommendations regarding this topic to the work of the EWG.

Eligibility and Fund Priorities: This project is eligible for Energy Efficiency, Low Carbon and Energy Resiliency Measures Sub-fund since Category 2 projects are defined as all other energy efficiency, energy access and low carbon measures projects, including renewable energy projects. Information and experiences shared in the Workshop will contribute to achieving APEC's aggregate energy intensity reduction goal of 45% by 2035 which was agreed at the APEC Leaders Meeting in Honolulu in 2011.

Capacity Building: Through project’s outputs (Workshop; Summary report), the proposed project will help to enable participants from member economies – particularly developing economies – to exchange information, experiences and good practices in promoting biomass for rural and remote area development. Developing economies who send participants to the Workshop will benefit most since their participants’ capacities are built while economies that are unable to send participants may somehow get information from uploaded presentations and summary report.

Objectives

The main objective of the project is to hold a 2-day Workshop in Viet Nam in 2023 that help APEC stakeholders to share experiences and good practices in promoting biomass energy for rural and remote development as well as develop a set of recommendation on renewable energy policies, especially biomass energy while developing economy.

Alignment

Beneficiaries and Outputs

Outputs

1. Pre-workshop survey

We intend to conduct a Pre-Workshop survey (online survey questionnaire), before the Workshop for preliminary data collection and analysis, in order to develop a view on the current state of using and promoting biomass energy for rural and remote area development. The Survey will be sent to all APEC Participants before the Workshop and will also help the Project focus on issues most pertinent to the member economies and develop substantive recommendations. The result of the survey will be incorporated and summarised in the Summary Report.

2. Workshop

A 2-day Workshop will be held in Viet Nam in 2024
We expect there will be 6-10 speakers/ moderators and about 60 participants attending the Workshop. The first day of the Workshop will be presentations of speakers, followed by Q&A Sessions. The second day of the Workshop will be presentations, Q&A and a Discussion Session.

The Presentation may include presentations on overview, information, experiences, best practices on using and promoting biomass energy for rural and remote area development. Participants and speakers can continue to share ideas, experiences and discuss further in the Q&A Session at the end of each Session. The Discussion Session will focus on suggestions at economy and APEC levels for consideration of activities/ policies to promote economies on using and promoting biomass energy for rural and remote area development. This Session also recap the key learnings and facilitates discussion amongst participants about what they gained most from the event and how they can or plan to apply information and resources gained at the Workshop to apply in their economy.

Participants can actively share their perspectives and clarify their concerns on this topic, discuss on solutions to solve the problems for practical implementation. Organizers will encourage recommendations with substantial guidance or requirement on necessary resources to implement such recommendations. Also, the Organisers will try to include gender issue in the Discussion session and encourage the speakers to include gender-issue in their presentations.

The Post-event evaluation will help Organisers to assess the level of knowledge/capacity of participants regarding the topic. This Evaluation will help the Organizer to collect additional recommendations/suggestions from speakers and participants on promoting biomass energy for rural and remote area development.
The Workshop will gather various stakeholders such as energy and technology-related government officials, private sectors (domestic and international energy companies, technology companies), energy/technology associations, international organisations (for example International Energy Agency, ASEAN, OECD, UNEP, etc) and/or researchers from APEC economies.

This project’s objectives include but not limited to build awareness and capacity on for participants, especially the regulators, policy makers, businesses working on existing work in energy sector; discuss on how to promote biomass energy for rural and remote area development. Session on recommendation will not only include further activities/ initiatives but organizers will also encourage participants to provide recommendations on actionable policy (policies) after the Workshop that can contribute to achieving the project’s goal.

3. Summary Report

A summary report (minimum of 15 pages) with outcomes and recommendations from the Workshop will be presented to EWG. Such report will include substantive content and be composed of the following, but not limited to, sections: introduction of the project; briefings of the presentations made at the Workshop, including best practices; briefings on discussions at the Workshop; suggested recommendations made by Workshop participants and the speakers and some Highlights of Pre- Workshop Survey. Participants will provide recommendations by 2 ways:

(i) during discussions at the Workshop, (ii) at the Post–event Evaluation forms that are provided at the end of the Workshop.

Targeted audience of the summary report: project attendants, EWG, Expert Group on New and Renewable Energy Technologies, Expert Group on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EGEE&C),etc, Policy-makers/ regulators in the energy especially those who have experiences in renewable energy in APEC economies and policy makers/regulator in rural development.
Purpose: summarise discussions and recommendations at the Workshop.

This report will be an APEC Publication.

Outcomes

Increased knowledge and awareness amongst participants regarding how to promote biomass energy for rural and remote development. The Workshop is expected to increase capacity for participants, the regulators, policy makers and businesses working on renewable energy and rural/remote area development. Awareness level of participants will be measured by the Post-event evaluation; key policies, legal and regulatory settings will be made at Discussion session and written in the Summary report.
Improved coordination/collaborative actions and recommendations to promote using biomass energy for rural and remote area development. In the short term, the organisers expect these stakeholders to integrate knowledge and information absorbed from the Workshop to apply in practice. Participants from developing economies will also have a chance to learn about case studies and best practices from APEC economies, from which they can draw lessons, experiences to apply in their economy. In medium and long term, the recommendations made at the workshop will be a resource/ reference guide for APEC economies to consider in developing policies at economy’s or APEC’s level. This outcome will be measured by question(s) in the Post- event Evaluation form, asking participants which recommendation they consider most relevant and applicable to their own economy.

Beneficiaries

The first beneficiaries of the project are:

1. Government officials and policy-makers, businesses from APEC economies, who are directly involved in energy sector especially those who are working related to biomass and renewable energy. They may come from Department of Energy, Energy Regulatory Body, Energy Efficiency Agency, etc and government officials / policy makers, businesses working in remote/rural development. Policymakers from all APEC economies can learn from each other on how to promote biomass energy for rural and remote area development through sharing information on best practices of policies and regulations. Business organizations also play key roles and will be engaged in the project.
2. Local and international experts from private sectors specialized in renewable energy and remote area development. The expertise, number of years and level will be defined by the organizations sending the participants. PO will send the invitation letter to the focal points of Working groups (EWG, EGEE&C, etc) to invite the participant. PO will ensure that the APEC Non-Member Participation Process is followed, and delegates are approved by the fora well before the workshop.
3. Local and international experts from academic sector who has experiences in research in renewable energy and rural/remote area development.

Secondary beneficiaries of the project are:
Representatives from international/ regional organizations such as Expert Group on New and Renewable Energy Technologies, Expert Group on Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EGEE&C), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Energy Agency (IEA), United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), ASEAN etc.

Dissemination

For eco-friendly purposes, we will try to conduct paperless meeting as much as possible. Electronic copies of Workshop presentations and summary report will also be circulated to speakers and participants. All Workshop presentations and materials will be uploaded to Google drive (or Dropbox) and the link will be shared to speakers and participants to download prior to the Workshop. A project’s summary report will also be prepared and submitted to the SMEWG (minimum of 15 pages) with outcomes and recommendations from the Workshop will be presented to EWG. Target audience of the summary report: Workshop speakers and participants, EWG/ EGEE&C and Expert Group on New and Renewable Energy focal points and other interested
persons/organization; related government officials, business association working on renewable energy and rural/remote area development; international organisations
(for example World Bank, ASEAN, OECD, UNEP, etc) and/or researchers from APEC economies. Given APECs strong focus on electronic and digital publishing, workshop material and other documents will be disseminated electronically as much as possible.
The Summary Report will be an APEC publication.
No intention to sell outputs arising from this project.

Gender

This project can potentially address three of the five Gender Criteria (Skills, Capacity Building, Health; Leadership, Agency, Voice; and Innovation and Technology) as detailed in Appendix G of the Guidebook on APEC Projects, Edition 12. In particular:

1) The project shall contribute to supporting pillar #3 of women’s economic empowerment on “Skills, capacity building, and health”. In that regard, the project will help develop the knowledge and capacity of participating policymakers and regulators, busineses, especially women.
2) The project will also support pillar #4 on “Leadership, voice, and agency”, as 40% of Female participants are expected to join the workshop to deliver women’s view on how to enhance SMEs’ participation in GVCs in manufacturing industry through digital transformation.

The Report “Renewable Energy: A Gender Perspective” of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published in 2019 said that “Adopting a gender a perspective to renewable energy development was critically important to ensure that women’s contributions (their skills and views) represented an integral part of the growing industry. IRENA indicated potential job growth in the sector from 10.3 million in 2017 to nearly 29 million in 2050, offering diverse employment opportunities along the value chain requiring different skill sets”.

Establishing gender as a pillar of energy strategies at the national and global levels will produce a swifter and more-inclusive transition to renewable energy. The global energy transition towards a renewable energy system offers a wide range of opportunities to transform the energy sector, including creating opportunities for social and gender equality. Gender equality, along with a wider sharing of the benefits from the global energy transformation is essential to shaping positive social and economic development outcomes. Women provide valuable perspectives on key decisions, from investment priorities to project design.
Realizing the importance of gender equality and the unprecedented opportunities of women in renewable field, PO will also consider incorporating gender issues into the project event agenda. Women will be directly and actively involved in the project. Project proponents of this Workshop are women. The Workshop organizers will be careful to include women speakers and participants in the Workshop. The organizers will encourage women to be involved during the preparatory stage and actual activity. Invitations sent to EWG, EGEEC, ENGRET representatives will take due consideration of gender concerns by encouraging the suggestion and nomination of female speakers and participants. Biomass technologies are adopted differently between men and women, particularly in developing economies. While working with speakers during the preparation process, PO will encourage them to include the gender issues in their presentations.
In addition, the project proponents will ensure that the Post-Event evaluation forms to be distributed at the end of the Workshop will include information on gender for disaggregating of data for project assessment and will help in evaluation of specific responses of women and men.
PO is committed to collect sex-disaggregated data for all speakers and participants (and not only the APEC funded) from the project event. This data will be included as part of the submission of the Completion Report to the Secretariat when the project completes and will serve to guide future POs on their own gender parity targets. This data will be used to assess compliance with the project’s gender targets at the conclusion of the project, with performance data shared with APEC members.
PO expected that at least 40% of Workshop participants and at least 40% speakers/ moderators will be female.

Work Plan