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Energy Solidarity program


The GDF SUEZ Corporate Foundation supports projects aiming to combat energy shortages and encouraging energy access for the most impoverished. It is supporting a major electrification project for several villages in Peru.

 

Wind power plants

 

 

Solar pannelMore than 1.4 billion people do not have access to a modern form of energy, with serious social and environmental consequences. Promoting such access means combating inequality and poverty, and helps to improve health and preserve the environment. GDF SUEZ has the expertise, the technology and the research capability needed to provide tangible support for internal Group NGO projects and those of external partners.

 

The principles of the program:

 

  • support projects for energy access for the very poor and the reduction of energy insecurity,
  • support for solidarity projects established by Group NGOs to facilitate access to essential services.

 

 

Projects supported by the Energy Solidarity program

  

 

Morocco: energy access and sustainable use of renewable energies through microfinance

In Morocco and Egypt, the PlaNet Finance association  is supporting the FREEME project, which promotes access to renewable energies of vulnerable populations through microfinance. The project should benefit 4,800 people in the two countries and help inform nearly 2,400 micro-entrepreneurs and low-income households about the advantages of microfinance.

 
Democratic Republic of the Congo: electrification of major buildings in Kapolowe

The NGO Energy Assistance provided electricity to the major buildings in the town of Kapolowe, (school, hospital, leprosarium, fishermen’s village), located in the province of Katanga. The project, which was initiated by the superintendent of the University of Lubumbashi, benefits from the support of the governor of the province of Katanga and the NGO AMADE, which was founded by Princess Grace of Monaco.
 

Peru: installation of sustainable energy solutions


For three years, Energy Assistance has mobilized the skills of GDF SUEZ employees in order to bring photovoltaic and micro-hydraulic energy to around twenty isolated villages in Peru, situated close to the Brazilian border. After a field mission that made it possible to identify needs and local resources, Energy Assistance provided solar-powered rechargeable lamps to the cocoa planters of the villages of Pucalpillo and Santa Rosa.

  

Bangladesh: supplying electricity to river areas


The Friendship NGO, which has been present in Bangladesh since 1998, provides essential services to the country’s poorest and most marginalized populations. Under Runa Khan, an emblematic figure in social entrepreneurship in Bangladesh, Friendship is working with the GDF SUEZ Foundation and volunteer experts from Energy Assistance on an electrification project for island villages via technical solutions adapted to these isolated areas.

 


Europe: awarding of the European Prize for Social Innovation against Fuel Poverty
 

Fuel poverty affects between 50 and 125 million Europeans. In order to encourage innovative initiatives to combat this form of poverty, the National Union of Social Action Community Centres (UNCCAS) has launched the Précarité énergétique en Europe : comment en sortir ? (How do we end fuel poverty in Europe?) prize. In different European countries, it rewards locally led projects on such subjects as preventive actions, creation of specific tools, and training implementation The GDF SUEZ Corporate Foundation supports this project.
 

 


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