Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project YEEAP

Yemen Emergency Electricity  Access Project (YEEAP):

The development objective of the Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project is an operation that seeks to improve access to electricity in rural and peri-urban areas within the Republic of Yemen. The project financed by the World Bank (grant from IDA), and implemented by UNOPS. The three-year project will finance distributed solar solutions to provide urgently-needed access to electricity in Yemen.

Project Components:

Component 1: Financing for Off-grid Solar:

Subcomponent 1.1: Providing Basic Electricity Supply for Households

• UNOPS will engage eligible regulated, supervised MFIs , help them set up financing windows for high-quality, small-scale solar solutions for rural and peri-urban households, and provide grants to beneficiaries to make the systems affordable.
• Access to grants will be limited to residents of rural and peri-urban districts and small solar products that the non-poor are less likely to use.
• The grant component will be explicit and transparent, and will be gradually phased out to build to a commercial market segment for small-scale, high-quality household solar products

Subcomponent 1.2: Restoring Electricity Supply to Critical Services Facilities

• UNOPS will engage solar suppliers and installers to provide grant-financed solar energy systems to critical service facilities in rural and peri-urban areas.
• The scope of the subcomponent includes health clinics, schools, rural water corporations, rural electricity service providers, and other providers of critical services.

Component 2: Implementation Support and Market Development:

UNOPS will contract service providers and NGOs to provide market-strengthening activities.

Subcomponent 2.1: Project Implementation and Management Support:

1. General management support (indirect) costs for UNOPS.
2. Direct management and supervision costs required to support the implementation of the project (including the use of remote monitoring technology).
3. Independent audits of project activities, if required.
4. The establishment of a Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) in the UNOPS Sana’a Office to document complaints and ensure follow-up.

Subcomponent 2.2: Third-Party Monitoring:

UNOPS will engage a third-party monitoring (TPM) agent to undertake independent performance verification and field monitoring of activities funded under the project

Subcomponent 2.3: Market Development

This subcomponent will finance technical assistance, capacity building, and other market strengthening measures to make the solar market in Yemen more inclusive and sustainable, including but not limited to:

1. An awareness campaign and consultations (see section VI-F for further elaboration).
2. Technical training and capacity building to firms along the solar supply chain (including financial institutions, retailers, installers, and other service providers) to increase their reach and strengthen the job creation aspect of the program.
3. Technical assistance to the financial sector to develop de-risking mechanisms for commercial lending for solar (including supporting the further development of the newly established Loan Guarantee Program of SFD), with a view for the International Finance Corporation to come in with financing for risk mitigation to complement the IDA intervention.
4. Technical standard definition and dissemination, and the establishment of testing centers in cooperation with local universities to enhance the technical standards in the industry.
5. Support for the recycling of batteries from the project as well as the market, more generally, to minimize the environmental risks from the disposal of hazardous materials