Global LEAP: Setting Priorities

The Global Lighting and Energy Access Partnership (Global LEAP) was launched in April 2012 by a group of governments and implementing partners committed to principles to catalyze sustainable commercial markets for affordable, quality-assured off-grid energy and lighting products and services. In this webinar-based training, we provide an opportunity for you to hear from the Coordination Team representing Global LEAP members and engage in a discussion about what kinds of prospective activities your organizations would find most valuable.

Panelists

Rick Duke, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy, U.S. Department of Energy

Rick Duke is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Internationally, he focuses on the Clean Energy Ministerial, which seeks to accelerate global progress in areas such as appliance efficiency and electric vehicles through high-level dialogue and sustained technical work. Domestically, his team applies energy systems and economic analyses to inform clean energy policy. Previously, as the director of the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), he built a team of professionals dedicated to working with government and corporate leaders to accelerate investment in global warming solutions. Prior to joining NRDC, Duke was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, where his projects included managing the firm’s first global greenhouse gas abatement cost curve study. Rick has also worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the International Finance Corporation, and an off-grid renewable energy company in Honduras.

Vivien Foster, Energy Unit Sector Manager, Sustainable Energy Department, World Bank

Vivien Foster is Lead Economist in the Office of the Director for Sustainable Development in the Africa Region of the World Bank, where she is responsible for coordinating a major knowledge program known as the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic. Her work at the World Bank involves both analytical and advisory services, and economic input into the design and supervision of projects, with a focus on the impacts of infrastructure reform and privatization on the poor. Before joining the World Bank, she was a Managing Consultant of Oxford Economic Research Associates Ltd in the UK where she advised private and public sector clients in the water and energy industries, and she worked with several Latin American governments on issues relating to water sector reform.

Richenda Van Leeuwen, Executive Director, Energy and Climate, Energy Access Initiative, UN Foundation

Richenda Van Leeuwen is Executive Director, of the Energy and Climate, Energy Access Initiative team overseeing the UN Foundation’s work on energy access. She joined the UN Foundation in 2010 from Good Energies, a global renewable energy investment company. A sought-out speaker on energy access and poverty issues, she has more than 20 years of executive management experience with the United Nations, the private sector, and non-profits on several continents. Van Leeuwen has a range of expertise encompassing not only emerging markets commercial investment in renewable energy technologies, but also the application of a range of renewable energy technologies for poverty alleviation, including business, financing and investment models to support scaling of Base of the Pyramid markets in developing countries. She also has many years of experience leading micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprise investment activities and projects in Africa, Asia, and the Americas with a focus on gender equity, as well as experience in refugee issues and post-conflict reconstruction particularly gained in SE Asia and the Balkans. She serves on the board of SELCO India, a leading renewable energy social enterprise focusing on energy solutions for poor families in India.