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The Sustainable Energy for All Business Plan 2021-2023 outlines a strategic reorientation of the organization to address the fact that the world is not on track to meet SDG7 by 2030, particularly given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 'Recover Better with Sustainable Energy Guide for Caribbean Countries' outlines how sustainable energy investments can drive long-term development, economic resilience, and adherence to the Paris Agreement in the Caribbean region.

SEforALL's 2021-2023 business plan introduces 'SEforALL 3.0', an evolution from global agenda-setting to an implementation-focused model. The strategy centers on four thematic areas: Energy Diplomacy and Advocacy, Energy Access and Closing the Gap, Energy Transitions and Climate Change, and Intersection with Other SDGs. Key initiatives include the Universal Energy Facility for results-based financing, the 'Women at the Forefront' program, and the 'Powering Healthcare' agenda. To support these goals, SEforALL requires a three-year budget of USD 58.9 million and plans to establish regional staff presence in Africa and Southeast Asia to better support high-impact countries.

The Recover Better with Sustainable Energy Guide for African Countries highlights that 565 million people in Africa lack electricity and 900 million lack clean cooking. It proposes that African nations use the COVID-19 recovery period to invest in sustainable energy to drive GDP growth and improve health, gender, and agricultural outcomes.

KPMG Austria GmbH conducted a voluntary audit of the financial statements of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) for the year ended 31 December 2019. The auditors issued an unqualified opinion, stating that the financial statements present fairly the organisation's financial position and performance in accordance with voluntarily applied Austrian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The audit found the accounting system compliant with the organisation's statutes and noted no material weaknesses in internal controls or doubts regarding the organisation's ability to continue as a going concern. For the 2019 period, SEforALL reported total income of $10,551,418 and total expenses of $10,576,632, with a significant portion of its assets held as receivables from managers and debtors.

Divine Bamboo is a Ugandan social enterprise founded in 2016 that produces bamboo-based briquettes as a sustainable alternative to charcoal and firewood. The company utilizes fast-growing local bamboo to create fuel with higher calorific value and lower costs, potentially reducing household fuel expenditure by 50 percent. As a recipient of the 2020 Energy Access Booster Award, Divine Bamboo intends to use up to USD 50,000 in support to acquire automated equipment and scale production to four tonnes of briquettes per month. The enterprise has already trained 350 small-scale farmers, primarily women and youth, and aims to reduce charcoal and firewood consumption from unsustainable sources by 20 percent in Kampala over five years.

The guide provides a structured framework for electrifying health facilities, moving from stakeholder consultation and national mapping to energy needs assessments, technical analysis, costing, and the development of an implementation strategy. It emphasizes the use of standardized system specifications to achieve economies of scale and suggests integrating health facility power solutions into community mini-grids for long-term sustainability. The approach is designed to be flexible, allowing steps to be expedited or run in parallel during emergencies.

This knowledge brief from Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), produced in support of the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), examines the challenges and opportunities associated with financing sustainable cooling solutions across diverse user needs.

Acacia Innovations produces Kuni Safi, non-carbonized briquettes made from sugarcane waste, to replace wood fuel and charcoal in Kenyan schools and small businesses. Since 2016, the company has served over 350 schools across 20 counties, selling more than 4,000 tons of briquettes and saving an estimated 100,000 trees. The company also manufactures portable, institutional energy-saving cookstoves. These solutions aim to reduce deforestation, lower school meal budgets, and improve health outcomes for cooks and students by eliminating smoke-related illnesses.

The document identifies significant barriers to financing sustainable cooling, including the diversity of needs across human comfort, agriculture, and health sectors, and a lack of global tracking for cooling-specific investments. It argues that while private capital is abundant, it is often too risk-averse for the innovative or low-income contexts where cooling is most needed. The brief highlights the role of the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) and suggests leveraging blended finance, national cooling action plans, and bulk procurement to scale solutions. It specifically emphasizes the need to coordinate funding for refrigerant replacement (via the Montreal Protocol) with energy efficiency improvements to maximize climate benefits.

This report synthesizes lessons from six country case studies to provide recommendations for designing 'Energy Safety Nets'—social assistance mechanisms intended to ensure the poorest populations can afford both the initial connection to and the ongoing consumption of modern energy services to meet SDG7 goals by 2030.

This guide provides a framework for policymakers and financiers on implementing Energy Safety Nets to ensure the poorest populations can access modern energy services, drawing on experiences from six countries.

The report outlines a comprehensive framework for sustainable cooling, categorizing solutions into four pillars: technology, services, policy, and finance. It emphasizes that achieving 'cooling for all' requires an optimized approach to meet fundamental needs in comfort and safety, food and nutrition, and health and care, particularly for vulnerable populations. The document introduces a five-part solution approach—Protect, Reduce, Shift, Improve, and Leverage—to guide the selection of measures ranging from nature-based passive cooling to high-efficiency active technologies and regulatory policies.

The report finds that while energy finance disbursements in high-impact countries grew by over 61% between 2013 and 2018, they still significantly lag behind commitments, with USD 32 billion disbursed against USD 52 billion committed. Between 2002 and 2018, 58% of planned disbursements and 49% of projects experienced delays. These delays are attributed to cumbersome administrative processes, design flaws not adapted to local capacities, and limited access to local financial services.

As of 2018, approximately 80 percent of Bangladeshi households lacked access to clean cooking alternatives, with 74 percent of the rural population relying on biomass. While LPG adoption is growing at 8–10 percent annually due to government tax exemptions, other technologies like electric stoves (1.1% usage) and improved cookstoves (10% usage) face affordability and awareness barriers. Financing is heavily skewed toward improved cookstoves (ICS) via development finance institutions (DFIs) and government programs like IDCOL, while private sector participation remains limited except in the LPG sector. The proposed National Action Plan 2020–2030 estimates a total investment requirement of USD 2.9 billion to achieve 100 percent clean cooking access by 2030.

The report finds that development finance for energy projects with gender equality objectives remains low, accounting for only 9% of total energy development finance in 2018, significantly lower than the 42% average across all sectors. It highlights systemic challenges in tracking this finance, including inconsistent reporting and a lack of energy-sector-specific guidance for OECD-DAC gender markers. To address these gaps, the document proposes a three-step framework for project documentation: defining the specific gender inequality context, stating a clear intent to address it throughout the project cycle, and demonstrating a direct link between the financed activities and the identified inequality. It also provides a taxonomy of gender inequalities in the energy sector, categorizing them into workforce/economic opportunities and household/workplace energy access.

The report finds that while energy financing disbursements in High-Impact Countries grew by over 61% between 2013 and 2018, they still lag significantly behind commitments, with $32 billion disbursed against $52 billion committed. These delays affect 49% of energy projects in HICs, driven by administrative burdens and poor project design. The document argues that an annual increase of $45 billion in disbursements is needed by 2030 to meet SDG7 goals.

The report identifies that 1.02 billion people among the rural and urban poor across 54 high-impact countries remain at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling in 2020. It highlights a 'productivity penalty' where heat stress is estimated to cause an annual economic loss of USD 630 billion across these countries, with significant impacts on the agricultural sector. The document also examines how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these vulnerabilities, particularly regarding the medical cold chain for vaccines and food security. To address these challenges, it proposes a sustainable cooling framework based on three needs (comfort & safety, food & nutrition, health & care), five solution approaches (protect, reduce, shift, improve, leverage), and four solution pillars (technology, services, policy, financial).

The report finds that while energy finance disbursements in high-impact countries (HICs) grew by 61% between 2013 and 2018, they still significantly lagged behind commitments (USD 32 billion disbursed vs USD 52 billion committed). Analysis of projects from 2002 to 2018 reveals that 58% of planned financing and 49% of projects were delayed. Key barriers include cumbersome administrative processes, poor project design, limited access to local finance, and low public awareness, particularly for clean cooking. The report argues that sound project design and streamlined administration are more critical for disbursement efficiency than general regulatory improvements.

The 2020 report by Sustainable Energy for All highlights a significant and growing gap between the investment needed and the actual funding provided for universal energy access. In 2018, only 16 billion USD was recorded for electrification in high-impact countries (HIC), far below the 41 billion USD annual requirement. Clean cooking funding, while tripling to 131 million USD in 2018, remains drastically lower than the 4.53 billion USD needed annually. The report notes a concerning trend where fossil fuel investments have grown, while renewable energy and off-grid solutions remain underfunded. It calls for coordinated action between development finance institutions and governments, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, to reduce risks for private investors and shift away from carbon-intensive energy sources.