Pilot data collection: Goma, DRC, June 2022

In May – June 2022, Energy Peace Partners (EPP) undertook its first data collection effort looking at the peace benefits of a Peace Renewable Energy Credit (P-REC) funded renewable energy project in Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A 2020 purchase of P-RECs from a Congolese solar developer’s (Nuru) 1.3MW solar mini-grid financed a ‘social impact’ project, in the form of the deployment and connection of streetlights in the Ndosho neighbourhood of Goma. The streetlights were turned on in March 2020.

The data collection piloted EPP’s monitoring and evaluation framework, focusing on a comparative assessment of two neighbourhoods: Ndosho, the beneficiary of the P-REC financed project, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Mugunga, which has no public lighting and generally very low levels of electrification. Nuru will be expanding its electricity provision to Mugunga in the very near future through its Goma II initiative (a larger solar mini-grid being built in Goma).

The results from the small-scale pilot data collection through household surveys and focus group discussions, which indicates around 9 percent higher levels of overall peacefulness in Ndosho, give EPP cautious optimism as to the contribution of P-REC financing to peace outcomes, and renewable energy access as a peacebuilding tool more generally. 

See the full findings from our June 2022 data collection here.