Renewable Energy: Evaluation of the World Bank Group's
               Support for Electricity Supply from Renewable Energy Resources, 2000-2017

                                       Report to the Board from the
                                   Committee on Development Effectiveness ∗


                                             Meeting of September 16, 2020


        The Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE) (“the Committee”) met to consider the
report entitled Renewable Energy: Evaluation of the World Bank Group's Support for Electricity Supply
from Renewable Energy Resources, 2000-2017 (CODE2020-0036) and Management’s Response
(CODE2020-0043).

         The Committee welcomed the evaluation, noting its timeliness and valuable insights to inform the
upcoming Board engagement on SDG-7 and its complementarity to IEG’s series of evaluations on energy.
They appreciated Management’s broad agreement with the evaluation’s recommendations and were pleased
to learn that World Bank Group (WBG) is the single largest global contributor to Renewable Energy (RE)
in developing countries. While acknowledging that the evaluation did not assess the most recent
technological innovations and practices used by the WBG, members were encouraged to learn that the
WBG has stepped up its engagements on solar power, wind and storage and the WBG has played a relevant
convening and knowledge sharing role, including in supporting countries’ efforts to meet their Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets.

         Members stressed the key role of the WBG to promote integration of RE sources into the power
systems of client countries in order to facilitate progress in their clean energy transition. Some members
encouraged Management to speed up investments in RE and focus on addressing the bottlenecks in
transmission and distribution. Some underscored that this needed to be a demand-driven agenda and
encouraged Management also to assist client countries in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of
traditional sources of power generation, given that these sources continue to outpace the growth of
renewable energy.

         On the recommendation to scale up resources and upgrade staff skills through comprehensive long-
term country engagement with coordinated WBG solutions to address multiple barriers to RE scale-up,
members referred to the need to reinforce partnerships and ensure early and continuous coordination across
the WBG institutions and with other development agencies. Some highlighted that there was room to
expand the role of institutional investors in climate change projects in client countries. Management
underscored the importance of continuing to support sector policy reforms and building strong partnerships
to help countries achieve their goals.

         Members highlighted that upgrading the pool of specialized staff was key to help client countries
address rapidly evolving challenges in scaling up RE. They appreciated IFC’s efforts to recruit industry
specialists and reinforce knowledge management to ensure dissemination of best practices, lessons learned,
and expertise on RE. Members also appreciated the Bank’s efforts to focus on next generation technologies,
policy and regulatory reforms and operational solutions to build capacity for RE integration, as well as the
work with education specialists to create centers of excellence to build capacity in client countries. They
were also pleased to learn about the upstream work being done by EFI and the Sustainable Development
Practices to scale up and improve the macro fiscal framework in order to remove market distortions.




∗
    This report is not an approved record.