Urban transportation is undergoing massive change and expansion, especially in the developing world. The rapid growth of cities is driving demand for better urban transportation and many cities are set to invest heavily in infrastructure. Unfortunately, the needs of low-income households are often overlooked in the selection, design, and service decisions related to these investments. According to the World Bank, urban public transportation systems disproportionately disadvantage the urban poor and vulnerable, especially in cities in the developing world.
Meanwhile, innovative business and service models are emerging that are disrupting the established transportation systems in cities by taking advantage of open data, the Internet and mobile telephony. Services such as bike share, ZipCar®, Waze®, Hopstop®, and Uber® are reducing consumption and reconfiguring the relationship between modes, users, and providers of transportation. These new approaches improve urban transportation by making it more efficient, dependable, and sustainable.
As Susan Zielinski of the University of Michigan’s SMART Initiative puts it, “Transportation is at a crossroads. In response to rapid urbanization, shifting demographics, and other pressing social, economic, and environmental factors, cities and regions are shifting investment dollars from single mode infrastructure to multi-mode, multi-service, IT-enabled door-to-door systems… innovations and opportunities (are going) beyond the bounds of the traditional transportation industry.”
Collectively referred to as the emerging New Mobility sector, this innovative industry sector provides a key opportunity to build more inclusive cities and more resilient communities.
Catalyzing the New Mobility in Cities is an exploratory effort focused on identifying innovative business and service models that are beneficial to the urban poor, both as users and providers of urban transportation.The primer briefly summarizes and showcases some of the hallmark innovations that are challenging the status quo in rapidly growing cities in the developing world.
Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, this ebook highlights a dozen of CityLab's favorite stories from the 2014 series on how Americans will travel tomorrow.
U.S. Bus Rapid Transit: 10 High-Quality Features and the Value Chain of Firms...The Rockefeller Foundation
Bus rapid transit (BRT) is increasingly being considered in cities across the United States as a reliable and cost-effective public transit mode. A large part of the appeal of BRT is its flexibility, offering a choice of system features that can be adapted to each community’s needs and constraints. As more U.S. cities look to BRT, they will need to understand the value chain that provides the vehicles, technology, services and financing needed to create a high-quality BRT system.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Pratt Center for Community Development have coalesced around a transit solution called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)—a high-performance system that combines the permanence, speed, and reliability of rail, with the flexibility of buses, at a fraction of the cost of a subway system. In the Foundation and Pratt’s report, Mobility and Equity for New York’s Transit-Starved Neighborhoods: The Case for Full-Featured Bus Rapid Transit, BRT is discussed as an affordable, reliable, and practical way of getting outer borough residents from point A to point B.
“The ethics of transport planning” - Prof Stephen Potter talks at the HCDI se...Marco Ajovalasit
This presentation will explore the ethical issues behind what appears to be a technical design process - that of transport planning decisions. It will draw upon the transport/land use designs explored in Britain’s new towns (and Milton Keynes in particular) which help to highlight the ethical decisions involved.
This will illustrate the way that the design of towns and cities affects our travel behaviour and constrains our ability to choose to travel in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Indeed, we can get locked into unsustainable travel behaviours and feel powerless to behave otherwise. This leads to the now prevalent negative attitude towards transport policy initiatives and often outright opposition to sustainable transport developments.
Urban design professionals argue that high density settlements are the main way that sustainable transport choices can be provided, as such designs produce conditions which make for good public, and also suppress car use. However, although such an approach is possible in major conurbations and city centres, this is a difficult and contentious approach for suburban Britain. For most places ‘big city’ design solutions are not politically viable.
Perhaps we should be looking to more innovative approaches. These could blend a variety of new measures, such as the ‘smarter travel’ initiatives as well as new emerging technologies. However these require a different way of doing transport planning to the traditional ‘big infrastructure’ transport policy approaches. New physical design approaches often require the redesign of the processes and structures to implement and manage them, and this may be the key barrier to success.
Maintaining and Improving Rural Transit Supply in an Era of Cost-Cutting
Presented by: Matthew W. Daus, Esq., Distinguished Lecturer, City College, University of New York, University
Transportation Research Center, Region II
James Cooper, PhD, Head of the Taxi Studies Group, Edinburgh Napier University
In this session, Mr. Daus and Dr. Cooper will address research completed on the supply of transit services, including paratransit use in mainstream transport provision in rural communities. Evidence will be presented from US and European locations, including the application of a shared
transit scheme using a wide range of optimized supply including Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT) and taxi operations. The presentation will also address how the research has demonstrated that bringing bookings and trips together allows authorities and suppliers to reduce costs, effectively maintaining a service with reduced costs, and/or enhancing services.
Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, this ebook highlights a dozen of CityLab's favorite stories from the 2014 series on how Americans will travel tomorrow.
U.S. Bus Rapid Transit: 10 High-Quality Features and the Value Chain of Firms...The Rockefeller Foundation
Bus rapid transit (BRT) is increasingly being considered in cities across the United States as a reliable and cost-effective public transit mode. A large part of the appeal of BRT is its flexibility, offering a choice of system features that can be adapted to each community’s needs and constraints. As more U.S. cities look to BRT, they will need to understand the value chain that provides the vehicles, technology, services and financing needed to create a high-quality BRT system.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Pratt Center for Community Development have coalesced around a transit solution called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)—a high-performance system that combines the permanence, speed, and reliability of rail, with the flexibility of buses, at a fraction of the cost of a subway system. In the Foundation and Pratt’s report, Mobility and Equity for New York’s Transit-Starved Neighborhoods: The Case for Full-Featured Bus Rapid Transit, BRT is discussed as an affordable, reliable, and practical way of getting outer borough residents from point A to point B.
“The ethics of transport planning” - Prof Stephen Potter talks at the HCDI se...Marco Ajovalasit
This presentation will explore the ethical issues behind what appears to be a technical design process - that of transport planning decisions. It will draw upon the transport/land use designs explored in Britain’s new towns (and Milton Keynes in particular) which help to highlight the ethical decisions involved.
This will illustrate the way that the design of towns and cities affects our travel behaviour and constrains our ability to choose to travel in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Indeed, we can get locked into unsustainable travel behaviours and feel powerless to behave otherwise. This leads to the now prevalent negative attitude towards transport policy initiatives and often outright opposition to sustainable transport developments.
Urban design professionals argue that high density settlements are the main way that sustainable transport choices can be provided, as such designs produce conditions which make for good public, and also suppress car use. However, although such an approach is possible in major conurbations and city centres, this is a difficult and contentious approach for suburban Britain. For most places ‘big city’ design solutions are not politically viable.
Perhaps we should be looking to more innovative approaches. These could blend a variety of new measures, such as the ‘smarter travel’ initiatives as well as new emerging technologies. However these require a different way of doing transport planning to the traditional ‘big infrastructure’ transport policy approaches. New physical design approaches often require the redesign of the processes and structures to implement and manage them, and this may be the key barrier to success.
Maintaining and Improving Rural Transit Supply in an Era of Cost-Cutting
Presented by: Matthew W. Daus, Esq., Distinguished Lecturer, City College, University of New York, University
Transportation Research Center, Region II
James Cooper, PhD, Head of the Taxi Studies Group, Edinburgh Napier University
In this session, Mr. Daus and Dr. Cooper will address research completed on the supply of transit services, including paratransit use in mainstream transport provision in rural communities. Evidence will be presented from US and European locations, including the application of a shared
transit scheme using a wide range of optimized supply including Demand Responsive Transportation (DRT) and taxi operations. The presentation will also address how the research has demonstrated that bringing bookings and trips together allows authorities and suppliers to reduce costs, effectively maintaining a service with reduced costs, and/or enhancing services.
This is the transportation planning module I developed for the Suncoast Section of the Florida APA's AICP prep course. I deliver it each March to help new professionals prepare for the exam.
Public-Private Partnership in Urban TransportJaspal Singh
The presentation highlights the different aspects of Public Private Partnership in Urban Transport. It highlights the investment required in this sector and what are the challenges faced by private investors.
This report to the NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the utilisation of rail and infrastructure corridors addresses the use of land development for integrated infrastructure corridors and considers improvement to policy development, planning and strategies to achieve greater productivity, enhanced liveability and improved economic benefit through informed decision making.
Multimodal in rail development: popularity and reaping benefitsAtkins
Dr Ghassan Ziadat, Atkins’ director of planning and infrastructure, looks in depth at transport planning, multimodal transportation and transit oriented developments. Ghassan believes that clear government direction, through policy and legislation, remains essential to ensure the consistent and effective adoption of multimodal transportation and transit orientated developments (TODs) in the Middle East’s major cities.
This presentation was first delivered in March 2014 at Infrastructure Outlook 2014, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Capital Metro Transit Oriented DevelopmentCapital Metro
Manager of TOD Lucy Galbraith delivered this presentation to the Capital Metro Board of Directors Rail Committee on June 14, 2010. The presentation is a good overview of TOD and its benefits, and an update on TOD progress at four MetroRail stations.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Resources in Rural and Small Town CommunitiesRPO America
During the 2017 National Regional Transportation Conference, Shari Schaftlein shared information and resources developed by the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Human Environment. These resources focus on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in a multimodal context in rural and small communities.
This is the transportation planning module I developed for the Suncoast Section of the Florida APA's AICP prep course. I deliver it each March to help new professionals prepare for the exam.
Public-Private Partnership in Urban TransportJaspal Singh
The presentation highlights the different aspects of Public Private Partnership in Urban Transport. It highlights the investment required in this sector and what are the challenges faced by private investors.
This report to the NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the utilisation of rail and infrastructure corridors addresses the use of land development for integrated infrastructure corridors and considers improvement to policy development, planning and strategies to achieve greater productivity, enhanced liveability and improved economic benefit through informed decision making.
Multimodal in rail development: popularity and reaping benefitsAtkins
Dr Ghassan Ziadat, Atkins’ director of planning and infrastructure, looks in depth at transport planning, multimodal transportation and transit oriented developments. Ghassan believes that clear government direction, through policy and legislation, remains essential to ensure the consistent and effective adoption of multimodal transportation and transit orientated developments (TODs) in the Middle East’s major cities.
This presentation was first delivered in March 2014 at Infrastructure Outlook 2014, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Capital Metro Transit Oriented DevelopmentCapital Metro
Manager of TOD Lucy Galbraith delivered this presentation to the Capital Metro Board of Directors Rail Committee on June 14, 2010. The presentation is a good overview of TOD and its benefits, and an update on TOD progress at four MetroRail stations.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Resources in Rural and Small Town CommunitiesRPO America
During the 2017 National Regional Transportation Conference, Shari Schaftlein shared information and resources developed by the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Human Environment. These resources focus on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in a multimodal context in rural and small communities.
UiWE presentation on "CPH Social Innovation Lab" - a hub for creating new social solutions in Scandinavia - at MindLab June 2, 2010. UiWE is cultural design company based in Copenhagen.
Our first issue of 2013 starts with three important topics that are recently receiving much attention,
but whose consequences and dynamics are difficult to grasp. These three topics deserve another
look because the visibility of some events may hinder what are their actual potential in the future.
Our first article is about various countries in the South American region organizing macro-events
in order to attract tourist and promote their service sector —where a great portion of informal jobs
and precariousness exist. Governments are investing heavily in creating infrastructure and giving
all the support that the private sector needs to organize successful events. Nevertheless, these
events are just the tip of the iceberg: governments may be losing the opportunity of having a wave
of tourist in the next ten years in order to extend benefits to a vast group of informal workers that
depend on services that tourist demand, such as retailing, restaurants, and tours, among others.
Climate change is making things worse for vulnerable population in South American countries.
Nevertheless, the rhetoric at negotiation tables still refers to the time when the Kyoto Protocol was
being designed. Such clear division of responsibilities between developed and developing countries
simply cannot hold in a post-Kyoto world. It is now that such divisions are becoming a
insurmountable barrier to reach an agreement. Nevertheless, such divisions of interests, goals and
coalitions has roots in the growing diversity of countries in the region, but they cannot be a pretext
for not reaching a shared criteria to deal with global negotiations about climate change.
Participation was, two decades ago, the flavor of the month in development policies. Giving power
to people in democracies was a correct strategy to improve social services and design public
policies. Nevertheless, the growing gap between the political discourse on what participation can
potentially bring and what actually achieves in most localities is giving ammunition to some
authorities to reverse participatory processes. Again, cities need to be creative, not only by
improving consultations with alternative techniques to reach people that has been reluctant to
participate, but also by improving their internal bureaucratic processes to become more responsive
and open to citizens’ preferences.
Suburban poverty affects over 16.4 million people across the U.S. and is growing rapidly, significantly outpacing the growth rate of urban poverty over the last decade (64% vs. 29%). Experts suggest that the problem of suburban poverty is “the new normal.” While the basic needs of the poor in the suburbs are similar to those of the urban poor (e.g. education inequity, poor access to quality healthcare etc.), there are some critical systemic differences (e.g. limited transportation options, jurisdictional challenges etc.). These challenges are further exacerbated by the lack of awareness and understanding of the problem and
potential solutions.
Yang design service design lab social innovation powered by service designYANG DESIGN
Service design is a relatively young discipline, dating back to the late 1990s, and even more so in Asia, where it began emerging around 2008-2009. As an emerging field that is drawing more and more interest, service design is not fully understood by both private and public institutions.
Over the past century, The Rockefeller Foundation has remained true to the pursuit of health access for all mankind. We have helped to build and develop schools of medicine and public health, contributed to new medicines and treatments that helped cure patients and advanced the field of health. Our long history has given the foundation a unique place in the field of global health. We have the ability and privilege to convene great minds, catalyze new initiatives, identify new opportunities and increase global health and wellbeing.
Is convening the right tool for your work? Convening places a significant demand on people’s time and resources, so it’s important to make informed decisions about when and how to bring a group together.
GATHER: The Art & Science of Effective Convening is a unique guidebook for convening planners and change agents interested in harnessing the potential of collective intelligence through in-person convening.
Learn more: http://rockefellerfoundation.org/gather-guide
Long‐term unemployment has reached historic highs in the United States in recent years. Currently, nearly 40 percent of unemployed workers have been out of work for six months or longer, compared to a high of 25 percent in the 1980s recession. Lengthy periods of joblessness profoundly affect the economic and social resilience of workers and their families. Long‐term unemployment erodes assets, diminishes reemployment possibilities and significantly reduces lifetime wages. Additionally, the longterm unemployed face higher rates of family instability, mental and physical health problems.
Informal workers face substantial risks and vulnerabilities due to insecurity surrounding their employment status and lack of control of the conditions of their employment. In addition, informal workers have limited access to affordable and appropriate health care for themselves and their families, and they may not seek care if they have insecure legal status, or due to the potential expense or loss of income. The combination of high vulnerabilities and inadequate social protections (including insufficient access to affordable health services) results in high incidences of injury, illness, susceptibility to chronic diseases and poverty.
In August 2013, a multidisciplinary group gathered at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center to address the theme of “Community Resilience Through big data and Technology.” Creative and critical thinkers were selected from the technology sector, academia, the arts, humanitarian and ecological spheres. Over ten days, we explored how data could be used to help build community resilience in the face of a range of stresses — environmental, political, social and economic. Large data collection and analysis may support communities by providing them with timely feedback loops on their immediate environment. However, the collection and use of data can also create new vulnerabilities and risks, by enabling discriminating against individuals, skewing evidence, and creating dependencies on centralized infrastructure that may increase a system’s vulnerability. After analyzing these risks and opportunities, we developed a framework to help guide the effective use of data for building community-driven resilience. In this framework, we propose six domains: ethics, governance, science, technology, place and sociocultural context. We believe that by considering all six domains together, organizations can safeguard against predictable failures by exposing project weaknesses from the outset rather than in hindsight.
Urban women face significant economic and social constraints due to their limited ability to access, own and control property, including immovable property (e.g., land, structures), movable property (e.g., business equipment, personal possessions), and financial assets (e.g., cash, financial accounts). Insecure property rights make women more vulnerable and less economically, politically and socially empowered; inhibit them from improving their families’ health and well-being; and prevent them from fully contributing to the sustainability and economic growth of their cities. With increasing numbers of women living in cities, especially vulnerable groups like migrants and the elderly, women’s insecurity of property rights in the urban context is rapidly growing in urgency.
In December 2016, The Rockefeller Foundation’s African Regional Office hosted the Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Convening in Nairobi, Kenya. Over 150 delegates and 40 speakers participated, sharing insights, examples, and engaging in debate and discussion on why and how ‘resilience’ can enhance Africa’s ongoing development.
Recurrent food crises are one of the principal impediments to development in the Horn and Sahel regions of Africa. In 2011, a drought-related emergency affected over 12 million people in the Horn – the fourth such event since the turn of the millennium. Precise numbers are unavailable, but estimates indicate that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and tens of thousands more died. A year later, 18 million people were affected by a major crisis in the Sahel – the third to hit the region in eight years.
Food crises are slow-onset disasters. They emerge over a period of months and are routinely tracked and anticipated by famine early warning systems – specialist units that monitor and forecast risk factors such as food prices, health indicators, rainfall and crop production. These systems provide governments and humanitarian actors with the chance to take early action and prevent the situation from escalating into an emergency. Cost-benefit analyses indicate that, compared with emergency response, early action offers significant cost savings in the long run.
Yet all too often the link between early warning and early action fails and the opportunity to mitigate a gathering crisis is lost. This disconnect was starkly apparent in Somalia during 2010/11, when increasingly urgent early warnings accumulated for 11 months before famine was finally declared in July. Only after that did the humanitarian system mobilize.
Beginning with the failures that allowed the Somalia famine to take place and drawing on the recent history of other early warnings, this report considers in detail the various political, institutional and organizational barriers to translating early warning of famine into early action to avert it, and makes recommendations for how these can be overcome.
While the mobile sector has grown significantly over the last 5-7 years, scale and sustainability have yet to be achieved. To further explore opportunities and barriers to investment and partnership to scale mobile-enabled technology, the Rockefeller Foundation has supported the work of Mobile for Development Intelligence, an open data research portal for the developing world mobile industry.
This report analyzes market and user data to provide a fuller picture of activities in the mobile sector and present recommendations on how to accelerate economic, social and environmental impact with mobile solutions.
In 2013, in response to the opportunities presented by Africa’s rapidly growing youth population and the ubiquity of information and communications technologies across the continent, The Rockefeller Foundation launched its Digital Jobs Africa initiative. The initiative aims to enable young people to access jobs by providing them with in-demand technology-related and other employability skills. Now just past its two-year mark, the Foundation is taking stock of the rich learning that has emerged from the initiative.
Impact investment is a strategy to align the power of private markets to the social and environmental development needs of society at-large. From 2012-13, the Rockefeller Foundation, through its Impact Investing initiative, funded research in five Sub-Saharan African countries with the aim of understanding the barriers for impact investing across Africa, as well as recommending national policies to encourage the growth of the industry. This report synthesizes the findings of that work, examining the potential of impact investing as a ‘strategy of choice’ for African policymakers.
Ppp for solving public transport woes in indiaAmit Jain
The public transport in most of the cities are dependent on buses, auto rikshaws, cycle rikshaws which are not able to meet the demand, prone to accidents, delays & traffic jams. The cities need to create an efficient and affordable public transport services. The private sector may be invited through PPP to develop an integrated public transport system in a city. The private sector may charge an appropriate user fee (fare) from the users and earn revenue from commercial activities like advertising, renting & leasing of commercial spaces etc to cover his capital and recurring cost.
Bike Sharing for Multi-modal Transit - oBikeIan Goh
The first/last-mile problem – that is getting to and from public transit stations – is a major obstacle to use of public transit and the uptake of multi-modal transit paradigm. Bike sharing initiatives can help address this issue.
DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE URBAN TRANSPORT STRATEGIES FOR SALEM CITYIAEME Publication
Urban planning as majorly practiced in India is mainly concerned with the development of land in cities. Urban traffic congestion being a major problem in large cities which has a negative impact on mobility, environment, local economy and quality of life. The aim of this thesis is to develop an efficient transport with good and better facility for the Salem city. The roads and public transportation areas should be developed and maintained clean. Salem was a municipal town till 2007 and is developed to city in 2008 with heavy area expansion to more than ten times. A detail including all the elements like sustainable urban transport strategies for Salem city is not carried out in the past. To achieve this, development of Salem should meet all the three strategies i.e. social, economic and environmental sustainability goals. Hence sustainable development for Salem city is necessary.
The Transforming Health Systems (THS) initiative was one of The Rockefeller Foundation’s largest global health initiatives. Aligned with the Foundation’s mission to promote the well-being of humanity, THS aimed to improve the health status and financial resilience of poor and otherwise vulnerable populations through activities promoting improved health systems performance and the expansion of universal health coverage (UHC).
This report synthesizes findings from a five-year, multicomponent evaluation of the THS initiative. The objectives of the evaluation were to assess i) the effectiveness of the three core strategies – global advocacy, regional networks, and country-level investments – employed under THS to advance progress toward UHC in low- and middle-income countries in four focus countries, ii) the overall effectiveness and influence of the initiative, and iii) the Foundation’s legacy in the UHC arena. A key component of the evaluation was to document lessons learned from achievements and challenges to inform the development of future initiatives at the Foundation.
Overall, the evaluation found the THS initiative to be successful in its efforts to activate a global movement to accelerate progress toward UHC. The Foundation catalyzed and shaped the global UHC movement and, ultimately, influenced the inclusion of UHC in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the post-2015 agenda. It also created enduring cross-learning platforms and tools to support country progress toward the SDGs’ UHC targets. Although THS gained less traction in advancing UHC through its focus country investments, its success in making UHC a global development target and creating networks and coalitions to support UHC reform efforts in LMICs will likely have country-level impacts for years to come.
This guide is designed for program officers to use in their work related to networks, coalitions, and other relationship-based structures as part of their initiatives, program strategies, and outcomes. It offers a set of core components that make up the basics of strategizing, implementing, and sustaining inter-organizational relationships and structures. You can work through the guide from beginning to end or jump to specific issues with which you might be struggling. Every component suggests concrete “actions” or questions that a program officer can apply.
Putting “Impact” at the Center of Impact Investing: A Case Study of How Green...The Rockefeller Foundation
More than ever before, investors are looking to put their money where their values are. As a result, impact investing has burgeoned into an over $100 billion industry in just over ten years. But how do impact investors know whether their money is truly having a positive impact on people and
the planet? How can these investors better manage their results, and use material data – both positive and negative – about social and environmental performance to maximize their impact?
This case study documents the journey of one organization, Green Canopy Homes – and its financing arm, Green Canopy Capital – toward more systematically thinking about, measuring, and managing its impact. While developing the impact thesis for its resource-efficient homes, Green Canopy applied a theory of change tool, an approach common within the social sector, to systematically map the causal pathways between its strategies and intended impact. Its rationale for adopting this approach was simple: use it to maximize impact, and understand and minimize possible harm. The tool also effectively positioned Green Canopy to measure and communicate about its social and environmental performance, and to make client-centric adaptations to its business.
The case study provides an illuminating example of how investors can adapt theory of change to serve their impact management needs. By demonstrating the relevance and transferability of this tool for articulating, measuring, and managing impact, the hope is that this case study can contribute to strengthening other investors’ approaches, in turn contributing to building the evidence base for the “impact” of impact investments.
Electricity is one of the most important drivers of socio-economic development, yet up to 250 million Indians are not connected to the national grid, and the majority of rural consumers have grossly unreliable power supply. More than solar lanterns and home systems that power a few lights and fans, among the most efficient ways to provide reliable electricity in remote areas is through local mini-grids. India has several run by energy service companies and usually funded by philanthropic capital.
Most of these enterprises have not been able to scale-up their impact meaningfully because the risk of the national grid entering their markets can render their mini-grid unviable. Rather than seeing “grid versus mini-grid” as a policy choice, Beyond Off-Grid: Integrating Mini-Grids with India’s Evolving Electricity System explores ways we can encourage more of both: to have the grid operate in partnership with a network of distributed mini-grids to accelerate electrification.
What does the roadmap for this ‘interconnection’ of our energy system look like? How can we leverage both government and private investment? What are the different interconnection models and their commercial, technical and regulatory implications? Where do mini-grids go from here? This timely report – commissioned by the Asha Impact Trust in collaboration with Shakti Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation – provides a multi-layered perspective to address these questions based on extensive research, wide-ranging policymaker interactions, and our investment experience evaluating mini-grid operators.
We cannot achieve significant poverty reduction without stimulating electricity consumption, which fuels income-generating activities in the modern economy. In India, about 237 million people have little or no access to reliable electricity -- more than 90% of them live in rural areas. This severely constrains economic opportunities. Addressing this chronic problem requires going beyond simply expanding the government grid.
Mini-grids have emerged as a viable solution to complement and integrate with the national grid, and can support the government in achieving its ‘Power for All’ vision. The Rockefeller Foundation’s Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD) initiative is the first to pursue the creation of a mini-grid sector that is robust enough to fuel commercial enterprises and drive economic development beyond just one village. Smart Power India (SPI), which leads the SPRD initiative in India, has proven that mini-grids can be swiftly deployed to deliver reliable power, and has likewise demonstrated that mini-grids can spur economic activity needed to help people lift themselves out of poverty.
This issue of Smart Power Connect, published after the hundredth village was connected to Smart Power, explores the efforts, success stories, and challenges faced in SPI’s mini-grid journey to date. With insights from government agencies, policy experts, energy service companies, investors and mini-grid customers themselves, this publication provides a glimpse into the potential of the mini-grids to transform the energy sector – and how rural communities are embracing and utilizing clean, reliable and adequate power to improve their lives.
Today, nearly 240 million Indians lack access to reliable electricity, and 90 percent of them live in rural areas. Despite the government’s ambitious plans to accelerate universal electrification by 2018, challenges remain in providing reliable and sufficient energy to the last mile. Distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions, and in particular mini-grids, have emerged as a reliable complement to the government’s electrification programs by providing rural areas with access to reliable and high-quality electricity at a much faster pace. The growth of the DRE sector will be an important fillip to the last-mile challenge.
Smart Power India (SPI) is an organization that implements The Rockefeller Foundation’s Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD) to build viable and commercially oriented mini-grid ecosystems in India. This report explains the Smart Power mini-grid model and explores the drivers of success. Analyzing early data from a cohort of the 106 Smart Power mini-grids operational as of 2017, SPI provides data on commercial performance as well as recommendations to further accelerate the rural mini-grid business.
Encouragingly, the report reveals that the 23 top-cohort plants have an average unit-level profit margin of approximately 30% after the first year of operations. It also highlights that villages receiving electricity from SPRD mini-grids show early signs of social and economic impact (also see Understanding the Impact of Rural Electrification.) SPI has observed that site selection, a strong focus on operations, support for demand generation and marketing optimized for rural customers, are critical to the continued improvement of mini-grid operations. Finally, the report provides recommendations to address external challenges such as the need for increased financing, stronger policy support and further technological innovation.
A successful philanthropic initiative depends not just on the strategy pursued – but also on how that strategy is implemented. Implementation considerations can vary significantly based on the shape of an initiative – starting a new organization can look very different than investing in a portfolio of existing organizations. This report looks at four “models” for implementing initiatives. These don’t represent an exhaustive set of potential models to pursue, or even the most high potential models. Rather, these are four examples of models, each of which has significant potential for impact when chosen wisely and executed well. The report outlines the considerations involved in choosing to pursue each of these models and findings on how to implement them, drawn from real-world experience.
Globally, over 1 billion people still live without electricity. Roughly 237 million of these people are in India. Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD) is a $75 million initiative aimed at accelerating development in India’s least electrified states. Through the deployment of decentralized renewable energy mini-grids, SPRD works to accelerate the growth of rural economies, while at the same time improving the lives and livelihoods of poor and marginalized families and communities. With access to energy, individuals, households, and communities can generate economic opportunities and enhance their quality of life. Understanding the Impact of Rural Electrification has generated significant insights on how SPRD is having an impact on the lives of villagers, and what more is needed to sustain, grow, and scale these gains. We’ve learned that households and businesses are slowly but surely moving up the energy ladder; enterprises are expanding and new ones are being created as a result of energy access, and women are feeling safer and more mobile after dark. In this report, we also introduce the innovative GDP+ approach which, which quantifies and measures the social, economic and environmental gains of access to electricity in GDP terms. The initial findings here show that SPRD villages experienced an $18.50 per capita increase in GDP+.
The information in this brief is drawn from a case study of the JLN conducted by Mathematica Policy Research in consultation with the THS team and the Evaluation Office of The Rockefeller Foundation. The study, completed in 2016, was undertaken to assess the extent to which the JLN had achieved its goal of becoming a country-driven, sustainable network helping to advance progress toward universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries.
The Joint Learning Network (JLN) is a key innovation and central part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to promote universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) under its Transforming Health Systems (THS) initiative (2009-2017). Launched in 2010, the JLN is a country-led, global learning network that connects practitioners around the globe, in order to advance knowledge and learning about approaches to accelerate country progress toward UHC. The JLN currently includes 27 member countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America that engage in multilateral workshops, country learning exchanges, and virtual dialogues to share experiences and develop tools to support the design and implementation of UHC-oriented reforms. The core vehicles for shared learning and resource development under the JLN are technical initiatives, which are managed by several technical partners and organized around key levers for reaching UHC objectives.
With 62.5 million tons of food wasted in the United States each year, there is much work to be done to
bring about substantial changes in the food industry that will create a more efficient food system and
help preserve the environment. This guide describes promising opportunities to reduce food waste
in three areas—packaging, food retail, and home kitchens—and discusses a number of solutions that
could be piloted, validated, and scaled to significantly reduce food waste in America.
National Disaster Resilience Competition's Resilience Academies - Emerging In...The Rockefeller Foundation
In 2015 The Rockefeller Foundation partnered with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to launch the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC)
Resilience Academies. Recognizing the salient need to infuse resilience thinking into HUD’s NDRC, these Academies were established to expose state and local governments to new approaches for protecting and promoting the long-term well-being and safety of their communities. A recent independent evaluation of the Academies has provided instructive insights about what works in efforts to build innovative resilience capacity.
Following its successful partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) post–Hurricane Sandy Rebuild by Design competition, The Rockefeller Foundation launched the Resilience Academies and Capacity-Building Initiative. Designed to support HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC), the Academies and the Initiative provide eligible state, county, and municipal governments with subject-matter expertise and lessons from the Foundation’s years of on-the-ground disaster recovery programming and mitigation planning. Further, the Foundation hoped to assist these key players in moving global knowledge and resources to meet homegrown needs.
Launched in 2008, the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) Initiative aimed to catalyze attention, funding, and action for building the climate change resilience of vulnerable cities and people in Asia. Given that current estimates forecast that about 55 percent of Asia’s population will be living in urban centers by 2030, the ACCCRN Initiative is built on the premise that cities can take actions to build climate resilience – including drainage and flood management, ecosystem strengthening,
increasing awareness, and disease control – which can greatly improve the lives of poor and vulnerable people, not just in times of shock or stress, but every day.
At the time the initiative was launched, the concept of urban resilience and models for implementing it were nascent and emergent. ACCCRN proved to be an important experiment and “learning lab” for the Foundation and its grantees and partners to build capacity in cities to better understand and implement resilience solutions to the often devastating shocks and stresses of climate change. The initiative was effective in the initial 10 ACCCRN cities and, later, in an additional 40 cities.
As part of our Foundation-wide commitment to learning and accountability to our grantees, partners and stakeholders, we undertook an independent evaluation of the work of the initiative in 2014 to assess what worked well and not so well in ACCCRN. Conducted by Verulam Associates and ITAD, who also conducted a mid-term evaluation of the ACCCRN Initiative in 2011, this summative evaluation highlights successes, but also provides an important moment to reflect on the challenges we faced and on what we can do better or differently going forward.
As part of its overall mission of promoting the well-being of humanity throughout the world, The Rockefeller Foundation developed the goal of advancing inclusive economies. The framing of this goal is deliberate: the word inclusive stresses the need to overcome disadvantage while the choice of economies versus growth suggests the need to consider all dimensions of economic life. This executive summary outlines efforts to develop a framework to better understand and measure the characteristics of an inclusive economy. It includes:
• The evolution of the concept of an inclusive economy
• Key lessons learned from an analysis of indicator initiatives
related to measuring an inclusive economy
• A recommended indicator framework composed of 5 broad
characteristics, 15 sub-categories, and 57 indicators
• Implications for future work
For more details, a full report is available at:
inclusiveeconomies.org
Situating the Next Generation of Impact Measurement and Evaluation for Impact...The Rockefeller Foundation
Situating the Next Generation of Impact Measurement and Evaluation for Impact Investing contends that measurement practices need to evolve by borrowing from the strengths of both private business and social sector evaluation. Suggesting that an impact thesis is a crucial anchor for impact measurement strategies, the paper offers several measurement approaches in use today. The ‘next generation’ of impact measurement and evaluation must stem from a commitment of impact investors to strengthen evidence for their social returns alongside the evidence for financial returns.
The goal of the CEO & Gender Media Audit was to understand the media coverage of CEOs in various situations and determine if there are differences in the way male and female CEOs are covered.
Equity and Inclusive Growth from a Development Perspective is essential reading for development and evaluation practitioners. It provides a concise history and critical examination of the concepts related to growth, poverty, and equity. These three foundational elements of contemporary development theory and practice are at the root of The Rockefeller Foundation’s movement toward advancing inclusive economies and building resilience.
The paper offers many insights about the measurement and evaluation of programs. It illuminates the debate surrounding ways to assess well-being beyond GDP. It covers the many ways to approach the measurement of poverty and the most commonly used indexes. Finally, it examines the important distinction between equity and equality and the policy implications of pursuing equity.