Saharan region, is widespread and a major impediment to living standards in this continent, we support the proposal for the creation of an Expert-Level Working Group within an appropriate framework and with participation from G8 countries and other countries, particularly from the African continent, and institutions who may wish to contribute on enabling entrepreneurs to build clean energy businesses serving rural and urban Africa. The Expert-Level Working Group should: a) include participants from governments, NGOs, and the private sector, especially entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and financial institutions to increase policy-making capacity and activate all participant countries on potential new policies and approaches; b) focus on how to promote public-private partnership to provide energy services to the poorest of the poor in Africa, seek ways to support small scale power networks, identify new approaches to reducing urban energy poverty and promote alternative fuels while improving forest governance to reduce the case of charcoal and fuel wood; c) identify actions that all participant countries can take to build private sector clean energy business in Africa, including local factories to manufacture fuel efficient cook-stoves, energy services firms to provide small-scale electricity access for villages, and micro-scale co-generation.
