17 October 2014: The UN Decade of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) has officially launched in the Americas. With over 500 participants from across Latin America and the Caribbean in attendance, the event highlighted that a transition to universal sustainable energy access is possible in the region and pointed to the health, economic, social and environmental benefits of making that transition a reality.

The SE4ALL AMERICAS launch event took place over the course of three days, 15-17 October 2014, in Santiago, Chile. The first day featured speeches from Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and Kandeh Yumkella, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (UNSG). Yumkella commended Latin America for its progress towards making SE4ALL a reality, noting that of 1.4 billion people globally without access to electricity, only 30 million are in Latin America and the Caribbean. He encouraged leaders in the region to continue their work until those remaining 30 million are brought out of the darkness.

Bachelet announced that Chile would reduce the number of families without electricity by half by 2018. Chile further aims to increase the share of non-conventional renewable sources in its energy mix to 20% and increase energy efficiency by 20% by 2025. In another announcement, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Vice-President Hans Schulz said IDB is set to finance sustainable energy projects over five years for US$5 billion.

Participants also discussed various actions the region could take in the next year to make the SE4ALL vision a reality, including how to spur more governments to commit to the SE4ALL goals. In a concrete step towards implementation, IDB was welcomed as the host of the UN SE4ALL-mandated online regional hub that will centralize information, events, standards and country status reports in support of the initiative. IDB will also provide energy access planning assistance to countries to help them reach universal access by 2030.

Attendees further discussed how to map all the actors and initiatives related to SE4ALL and how to increase the contributions civil society organizations (CSOs) and academics could make in standardizing information in the region. Ways to encourage private companies to boost sustainable energy business in Latin America and the Caribbean were also discussed.

The SE4ALL Decade will last from 2014-2024. By 2030, the initiative aims to ensure universal access to modern energy services, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Twenty-one Latin American and Caribbean countries have already joined the initiative. [SE4ALL Press Release, 25 August 2014] [SE4ALL Press Release, 15 October 2014] [UNECLAC Press Release] [IISD RS Sources] [SE4ALL Summary] [IDB SE4ALL Website]