Energy Access in Displacement Settings

Energy in Displacement Settings

“Without safe and reliable access to energy, it can be impossible to meet the basic needs of life.” 

Every year, millions of people are forced to leave their country and live as refugees due to war and persecution. In 2013, the total number of refugees exceeded even those after World War II, and this number has continued to rise since then. According to UNHCR, there were around 130.8 million people who were forcefully displaced in 2024, of which 32.7 million were refugees, 6.6 million were asylum seekers and 62.8 million were internally displaced people.

Access to food, water, shelter and medical care are the immediate priorities for people who have been forcefully displaced from their homes, either due to war, conflict or natural disasters. However, access to reliable and safe energy is another essential need but one that has received less attention in the past. The situation is starting to change, and many humanitarian actors are acknowledging the crucial role of safe and reliable energy access in improving the quality of life and generating livelihood opportunities for people living in situations of fragility and displacement.

Governments, humanitarian organisations and other key stakeholders often consider refugee and IDP camps as temporary establishments, and it is assumed that inhabitants will at some point return to their original homes. As a result, stakeholders are often reluctant to invest in more substantial energy solutions for camps with higher up-front costs, such as a grid extensions, mini-grids or plug-and-play productive use appliances. Instead, displaced people are often left to rely on more basic energy solutions, such as kerosene and solar lanterns for lighting and biomass for cooking. Many of these sources are unsafe, unhealthy, and burned in an inefficient way.

While the perception is that displacement is a short-term situation, this is rarely the case. For example, on average people spend 17 years in a refugee camp. Over time, the use of inefficient and polluting energy sources in situations of protracted displacement can have significant health and environmental impacts.

Typical displacement setting with camp characteristics and types of services available in camp and surrounding host community. Source: GIZ.

Energy for Cooking

In camps in north Darfur, people on average “missed three meals a week when they had food but no fuel to cook." 

Most of the food distributed in camps by humanitarian agencies needs to be cooked before it can be consumed. However, the fuel needed for cooking is usually not provided. Many people address this challenge by collecting firewood from the surrounding area, if available. This not only contributes to environmental problems, such as deforestation and desertification. It can also contribute to tensions between refugees and host communities. In other instances, people may trade food in exchange for fuel or consume undercooked food, which can lead to malnutrition.

Children gather firewood in a refugee camp in Tanzania. Source: GPA

Firewood dependency also has gender implications, as women and girls are often tasked with collecting wood. Especially in large camps they may have to walk for hours to find firewood, leaving them less time for other activities, such as looking after their children, working or supporting the refugee community. Furthermore, women and girls may be subjected to gender-based violence during their search for firewood, or they may encounter dangerous wild animals.

Displaced people who are unable to collect firewood must purchase fuel for cooking, which can be very expensive. For example, in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya it was estimated that, on average, families spend 24% of their income on energy.

Cooking with biomass on open fires severely harms people's health. Exposure to smoke from open fires is estimated to cause over 20,000 premature deaths amongst forcibly displaced people each year. A study in Nepal found that refugees are especially vulnerable to air born respiratory infections caused by smoke. They have a 10-17 higher rate of infection in comparison to people living in non-crisis settings. Furthermore, the risk of burns or setting fire to tents is also heightened by the use of open fires for cooking. 

Access to efficient and modern cookstoves can solve some of these problems. Use of these stoves reduces people's spending - in time and money - on cooking fuel. Through improved combustion, efficient stoves also minimize the health risks associated with air pollution caused by cooking.

Clean and efficient cooking solutions

Clean cookstoves in use in Tanzania. Source: GPA.

Some stoves can also be used to cook with alternative fuels, such as ethanol, LPG, or solar energy. For example, the Ethiopian charity organization Gaia Association has distribute efficient ethanol cookstoves to refugees living in the Jigjiga refugee camps. The ethanol is made from molasses, a by-product of the large sugar industry in the country.  Distribution of the stoves and ethanol fuel has reduced the consumption of firewood in the camp and improved the quality of life for households.

For further information on energy for cooking in refugee camps, see "Cooking Energy in Refugee Situations" and "Cooking Energy in Refugee Camps-Challenges and Opportunities."

Energy for Lighting

A boy in Nepal reads into the night. Source: GIZ.

Lack of lighting is another major problem in many displacement contexts. After sunset, camps are often completely dark. This means that many activities can only be completed during the day. For example, children cannot do their homework in the evenings. A lack of public lighting in camps can also pose safety and security threats. Many people, especially woman and children, do not feel safe walking around the camp after nightfall.  Meeting lighting needs with the use of kerosene lamps presents further health hazards, as acute and chronic kerosene exposure causes respiratory problems and other impacts.

Lighting and electricity are also essential for the provision of adequate medical care in displacement contexts. Electricity is needed to power vaccine refrigerators, diagnostic tools, sterilisation equipment and other medical devices, for example. Currently, medical stations in refugee camps and other displacement contexts are most commonly powered by diesel generators, if electricity is available at all. Reliance on diesel results in high fuel costs, environmental pollution and potential supply disruption due to supply chain volatility.

Electricity Access Solutions

Connecting displacement camps to the national grid in order to provide them with lighting is often not possible due to their classification as temporary structures and the fact that they are often located in remote areas where it would be costly and challenging for the grid to reach. Many refugee camps are located in countries and areas where even the local population often does not have access to electricity.

Distributed renewable energy solutions are one option for bringing lighting into camp settings. These are most commonly powered by solar energy and include devices such as solar street lights, rooftop solar panels or small devices such as solar lanterns. While these technologies may have a higher upfront cost than traditional and fossil energy sources, they provide long terms savings and health benefits. The fuel savings for a family which owns a solar light can be significant. 

Many solar lanterns also have a USB ports which people can use to charge their mobile phones, which are essential to their ability to communicate and seek information.

Financial Implications

According to an assessment by the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) in 2005, in humanitarian setting, refugees are provided with food and shelter but rarely with cooking fuel. Energy access for refugees is a basic humanitarian need but has been mostly ignored/undermined. Additionally, a global total of USD 2.1 billion is spend per year for energy access among displaced people. The majority of this cost is borne by the refugees themselves.

Environmental Degradation and Health Implications

80% of the 8.7 million refugees and displaced persons in camps worldwide, rely on traditional biomass for cooking and have no access to electricity.  They rely mostly on forest nearby the camps for firewood. As a result, 64,700 hectares of forest are cleared and burned every year in areas near refugees camps.  This result in increased competition between refugees and host communities for the dwindling forest resources and accelerating environmental disasters like flooding, increased desertification etc.

Burning traditional biomass for cooking is one of the major cause of indoor air pollution. The WHO estimates that around 20,000 forcibly displaced people die prematurely each year from diseases caused by indoor air pollution.

Gender Based Violence (GBV)

In most of the refugees camps, women and children are mainly responsible for collecting firewood and in many cases, they travel up to 20 km into unsafe areas to collect firewood. This could lead to cases of sexual assault and robbery among women and children while collecting firewood. In most cases, the women and children, do not report the sexual assault as they are afraid of social stigma as well as further persecution by the police and the local security authority. 

For women, communal sanitation facilities (latrines, bathing areas) can be a set up where they face GBV and harassment especially when they visit the facilities after dark. They could face harassment while:

• on the way to the facilities
• while using the facilities
• inside the facilities
• voyeuristic "peeping" while they use the facilities

This publication sheds lights on the risk of GBV in and around sanitation facilities and how access to lighting could reduce it.

• Publication - Can cooking solutions for refugees better serve gender dynamics?

Implementing Solutions

Providing refugees with sustainable energy solutions, such of efficient stoves, alternative fuels and solar lighting, could have potential huge positive impacts on their lives as well as on the environment and the host communities. Furthermore, sustainable energy solutions could result in huge potential savings for humanitarian agencies. Introducing improved cookstoves and basic solar lanterns could save USD 323 million a year in fuel costs in return for a one-time capital investment of USD 335 million for the equipment. It would also save around 6.85 million TCO₂ per year.

However, humanitarian efforts and business approaches to this topic need to be coordinated. Especially in developing economies there is a risk of disrupting emerging private sector energy markets through the free distributions of products.  Therefore, humanitarian aid should always be carefully planned and, wherever possible, local establishment should be integrated so that the host community can also benefit.

Another important point to consider is that energy solutions need to be appropriate for the target community. They should be adapted to take into account factors such as cooking habits and social structures amongst the refugees in a camp. 

Currently there is still not enough funding in place for sustainable energy solutions in crisis settings. Energy needs to become more of a priority in humanitarian aid projects, especially considering the huge impacts that unsafe and insufficient energy access can have on the lives of refugees. Another problem is the lack of data available on this topic. Energy projects need to be better documented. This will allow new projects to build upon previous experience, enabling better and more efficient solution to be developed in the future. 

Recently, FAO has released a new handbook on assessing the woodfuel supply and demand in displacement settings. The methodology presented in this handbook presents global data sources that are applicable in any country and are tailored for data collection in and around displacement camps.

Publications

Publications dealing with the issue of energy access for refugees :

• Morales, Héctor Camilo. ‘The Role of Sustainable Energy  Access  in the Migration Debate’. European Union Energy Initiative Partnership Dialogue Facility (EUEI PDF), 2017. Link.
• Heat, Light and Power for Refugees: Saving Lives, Reducing Costs​
• Fuel-efficient stove programs in humanitarian settings: An Implementer’s Toolkit by USAID 2010.
• Light Years Ahead by UNHCR
• Energy solutions with both humanitarian and development pay-offs
• Moving Energy Initiative, Private Sector Engagement
• Moving Energy Initiative, Reviewing Cooking Solutions
• Refugees and energy access, EnDev’s position and capacities
• Assessing woodfuel supply and demand in displacement settings
• Energy services for refugees and displaced people
• SET4food guidelines on sustainable energy technologies for food utilization in humanitarian contexts and informal settlements
• Cooking in refugee camps and informal settlements: a review of available technologies and impacts on the socio-economic and environmental perspective
• Challenges and opportunities of new energy schemes for food security in humanitarian contexts: A selective review
• The true cost of using traditional fuels in a humanitarian setting: Case study of the Nyarugusu refugee camp, Kigoma region, Tanzania
  

Further Information

• Cooking Energy in Refugee Situations - article on energypedia
• Preparation Guide for a Sustainable Energy Project in Refugee Settings - article on energypedia
• UNCHR -Energy
• Gender Impacts of Energy Access
• Guide to Market based approaches in refugee settings
• SAFE
• Moving Energy Initiative
• Project Gaia
• #EnergyMatters: Why Refugees Deserve Better
• ENERGYCoP - a global, not-for-profit community of practice. Its purpose is to facilitate information sharing and increase collaboration among a diverse network of stakeholders who are engaged in providing Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) to crisis-affected people, such as refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), and those affected by disaster caused by natural hazards.
• OCHA's The Humanitarian Data Exchange
• World Bank's Energydata.info
• World Bank’s Live Wire: Project Database
• ESMAP's Global Tracking Framework
• InterAction’s NGO aid map
• Energy for Displaced People - UNITAR Conference, Berlin, Jan 2018. The aim of the conference was to start developing a Global Plan of Action, to be launched in July 2017. The background papers can be accessed here.
• Cooking with Clean Fuels: Designing Solutions in Kakuma Refugee Camp
• Energy Access for Displaced People
• Cooking Energy in Refugee Situations
• Cooking Energy in Refugee Camps - Challenges and Opportunities
• Clean Energy Challenge Baseline: initial data visualization