Asia and the Pacific

Access to energy services is a basic requirement for social and economic development. Despite this fact, millions of people in the Asia-Pacific Region live without access to adequate energy services.  The vast majority of these people live in rural and remote areas. Bioenergy, including liquid biofuels, is one of many possible renewable energy technologies that could be suited to fill the shortcomings. Many of the countries in the region have identified this as a possible way to secure energy supply, and bioenergy is already starting to represent a huge volume of energy production. Yet many governments lack the institutional capacity to formulate energy policies that integrate national and local energy and rural development policies into a coherent, reinforcing and effective whole. A clear need exists for pro-poor concerns, including food security, to be explicitly incorporated within policy and energy planning at national and regional levels. This would again ask for recognition that decisions on bioenergy involve a set of policy trade-offs; as they normally involve at least energy, environmental, developmental and agricultural concerns.    


FAO activities

FAO Asia Pacific analyzes and documents bioenergy policies, plans, and activities in Asia and the Pacific. We do so with a view to environmental impacts, technological developments and global markets. We liaise with other regional and international organizations active in bioenergy activities in the region (especially ADB and IFAD, with whom FAO is conducting joint programming) in order to gain more insight and execute our initiaves. Likewise, we maintain regular and frequent communication with other FAO actors on bioenergy. Finally, we participate in conferences and other meetings related to bioenergy, and we publish articles on bioenergy-related topics in our own publication Tigerpaper and elsewhere.


Current endavours include:

  • New RAP Study into opportunities for small-scale bioenergy to access carbon markets in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region. FAO RAP has been given USD27,000 under the Greater Mekong Sub-Region Economic Cooperation Program’s Core Agriculture Support Program to investigate opportunities for rural communities and small-holder farmers to access carbon markets.  Under the study, activities such as small-scale bioenergy, biochar and composting will be assessed in terms of their ability to access carbon finance.It is anticipated that the study will be carried out over the first six months of 2010 and will complement activities being undertaken via the regional technical cooperation project on Bioenergy and Renewable Energy for Rural Development and Poverty Reduction.
  • FAO RAP to participate in 6th Asia-Biomass Workshop. FAO RAP Bioenergy Officer, Beau Damen, will be presenting FAO’s regional program on bioenergy at the 6th Asia Biomass Workshop in Hiroshima Japan in November. The Asia Biomass Workshop is an annual event organized by the Japanese Government to bring together experts from across South East Asia in the fields of bioenergy and biomass utilization. Mr Damen will be presenting a paper on “Realizing the Opportunity of Small-Scale Bioenergy for Rural Communities in Asia and the Pacific”.
  • FAO RAP joins UNDP HEDON project. FAO RAP has joined the technical advisory committee (TAC) for a UNDP study to identify and analyze good practices and lessons learnt in expanding local energy service delivery projects in a financially sustainable way in the Asia Pacific region. The study is being organized under the UNDP HEDON initiative. RAP officers will participate in regular meetings of the HEDON TAC as well as engage in other HEDON events. FAO RAP’s involvement in HEDON will complement FAO’s existing activities in the region and strengthen understanding of the critical success factors for small-scale bioenergy and other renewable energy initiatives.
  • ADB-FAO-IFAD collaboration on renewable energy in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). In June 2007, the first regional workshop was held on the topic of renewable energy and poverty reduction in the GMS. This was jointly organized by ADB-FAO-IFAD, hosted by FAO RAP and served as the initiation of a longer-term joint initiative. In September 2008 the initial effort was followed up with a second regional workshop on the topic, where FAO RAP also was heavily involved. Reports on the prospects for the bioenergy sector have been produced for each of the GMS countries, and in some countries a national bioenergy policy is already in place.
  • Strongly related to the above project, a regional Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) on "Poverty Reduction and Biofuels in the GMS Region" was approved and is now being implemented. The amount of US$374,000 has been allocated to this project, in order to provide technical support and undertake studies of the poverty reduction-related potential of bioenergy in the Greater Mekong Subregion. There are plans to organize a workshop on findings of the studies and policy implications in June 2009.  
  • Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) - executed by FAO headquarters and in part administered by FAO Asia-Pacific. The project intends to explore linkages between food security, trade and the production of biofuel crops. Initially three countries were selected for further scrutiny: Thailand, Tanzania and Peru. However, given the relatively well developed institutional framework in Thailand on biofuels, it has been decided that an additional country in the Asia-Pacific region will be included in the project, namely Cambodia. It is expected that this food security-bioenergy project will involve significant complementarity with other regional bioenergy initiatives, including the ADB-FAO-IFAD joint initiative. 
  • Prepare for discussions and presentations on bioenergy issues for FAO's 29th Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific.  

Events

  • National Workshops – Bioenergy and Renewable Energy for Rural Development and Poverty Reduction in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region. In October 2009 RAP is organizing individual national workshops in Lao PDR and Vietnam on the topic of Bioenergy and Renewable Energy for Rural Development and Poverty Reduction under regional technical cooperation project TCP/RAS/3202D. FAO RAP is collaborating with the Dutch development organization SNV to deliver these workshops with the support of delivery partners; the Lao Institute for Renewable Energy and the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Lao PDR and the Asian Institute of Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Vietnam.
  • Bioenergy will be a major agenda item on the FAO's 29th Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok 26-31 March 2009 (information will be posted here)


For more information 


Contact

Page content: Tarina.Ayazi@fao.org
Regional Office: FAO-RAP@fao.org

last updated:  Friday, October 16, 2009