11 March 2013: The Permanent Missions of Mexico, Norway, and Tanzania, which are supporting the Global Thematic Consultation on Energy in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, held a briefing on the Consultation on 11 March 2013, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL), the UN co-leaders for the consultation, also participated in the briefing.

Tuvako Nathaniel Manongi, Permanent Representative of Tanzania, spoke of the link between energy development and community empowerment in his country. He said energy access is particularly liberating for women and their families. A regional consultation on energy will take place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 19 March.

Luis-Alfonso de Alba, Permanent Representative of Mexico, stressed the wide range of stakeholder views that the consultation is gathering, as well as the need for partnerships and coherence within the UN development agenda, and true balance between the three components of sustainable development. Juan Sandoval, Mexico’s Minister for Post-2015 Development, highlighted the regional consultation on energy taking place in Merida, Mexico, from 20-21 March, and a national consultation covering post-2015 more broadly, in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 18-19 March.

Geir O. Pedersen, Permanent Representative of Norway, said the energy consultation has been a “joint effort and partnership from the very beginning,” and outlined the upcoming high-level meeting on “Energy and the post-2015 development agenda” in Oslo, Norway, on 9 March. According to Pedersen, the meeting will aim to: summarize the consultations so far; focus on youth as a “red thread” for the post-2015 agenda; be interactive; and produce recommendations for the overall post-2015 process.

Vijay Modi, Columbia University, presented his research on energy access in India and Uganda, emphasizing the deployment of existing technologies in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Charles McNeill, UNDP, presented on the status of global consultations for the post-2015 development agenda, and recalled that energy has been identified as a key enabler of sustainable development. Minoru Takada, SE4ALL, encouraged participation in the e-consultations, which are still ongoing on the World We Want 2015 platform. [Energy Consultation Website] [IISD RS Sources]