The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has renewed a memorandum of understanding with the International Energy Agency (IEA) to scale up collaboration and advance progress on sustainability with an increased focus on energy sector resilience in Asia and the Pacific.
"The energy sector is a key driver of growth and human development, especially during recovery from the impacts of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic," said ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa.
"We are pleased to renew our agreement with IEA, which builds on our successful collaboration to date, and we look forward to advancing our shared objective of achieving a more sustainable and resilient energy future in Asia and the Pacific."
Under the three-year agreement, the two orgsations will share knowledge and best practice in energy sector data and analysis, on-the-ground engagement, capacity building, technology and innovation among other areas.
This will help to overcome critical knowledge and experience gaps blocking the development of sustainable energy systems in ADB's developing member countries and enhance IEA's data collection and capacity building efforts in Asia and the Pacific.
ADB first signed a three-year MoU with IEA in March 2017 to facilitate knowledge and analytical work to advance clean energy development in ADB's developing member countries. As part of this, ADB worked with IEA to study power system flexibility in India to integrate more solar and wind energy in the grids.
The renewal agreement was signed on the occasion of IEA's Clean Energy Transitions Summit on Thursday where Asakawa gave a speech at the plenary session to an audience of over 50 energy ministers and energy sector leaders.
Last month, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol delivered the keynote address at ADB's 15th Asia Clean Energy Forum 2020. IEA is a knowledge partner of ADB's leading annual energy forum.
ADB invested more than 23 billion dollars in clean energy, including both sovereign and non-sovereign initiatives from 2008 to 2019. Last year, ADB's climate financing reached a record 6.56 billion dollars, meeting its target of doubling its annual climate investments from 2014 one year ahead of schedule.
Under Strategy 2030, ADB is targeting 80 billion dollars in cumulative climate financing from its own resources by 2030 and for at least 75 per cent of its country operations to feature climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives.
( With inputs from ANI )