The electricity sector lies at the nexus of two urgent global imperatives: powering economic activities and livelihoods and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of fossil fuels. The international community is looking to multilateral development banks (MDBs) to help developing countries balance these sometimes conflicting imperatives.

This report focuses on East Asia

GWEC's annual report is the autoritative source of information on wind power markets around the world. The Global Wind 2009 Report contains installation figures for over 70 countries for the 2009 record year, as well as a five-year forecast up to 2014 and detailed chapters on the key countries.

The poor may be connected to the main electricity or water network. However, in areas where they do not have access to the main network, they are usually served by alternative service providers. Alternative service providers are an often unconsidered element of private sector provision of energy and water services.

This paper provides an overview of some of the issues surrounding the use of renewable energy technologies (RETs) to increase access to modern energy services in rural areas.