Energy Efficiency in Emerging Economies

Through its Emerging Economies (E4) Programme, the IEA works closely with six of the world’s largest emerging economies on energy efficiency

Working closely with emerging economies

Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa together consume one third of the world’s energy – expected to rise to 40% under current policy directions.

The IEA also works within two emerging regions, in ASEAN and Latin America, supporting energy efficiency through established political and trading relationships.

About the E4 programme

The collaboration with countries is highly flexible based on changing needs but generally falls into three main categories:

Understanding the potential of energy efficiency to enable a secure, sustainable energy system
Setting targets and tracking progress through energy efficiency indicators and policy evaluation for continuous improvement
Developing strategies and policy design to deliver energy efficient prosperity

There are five main modes of collaboration:

Support for policy development: focusing on the day to day needs of officials responsible for delivering energy efficiency policies
Thematic workshops: bringing together officials and experts from a range of countries to explore specific topics
Policy training: group training for officials and future leaders, primarily through the E4 Training Weeks
Webinars: online seminars offering access to a range of experts on key policies or technologies
Online training: self-paced learning on energy efficiency indicators. Access the training

As part of the E4 programme, the IEA is increasingly working with countries on quantifying and communicating the multiple benefits of energy efficiency with the objective of engaging leaders, ministries of finance and economy, as well as other influential stakeholders. The concept of Energy Efficient Prosperity aligns well with the social development and economic growth agenda of the emerging economy governments.

The E4 Programme is enriching the IEA’s ongoing portfolio of work by feeding lessons learned and data collected from emerging economies back into IEA analysis and publications, such as the Energy Efficiency Market Report, the World Energy Outlook, and Energy Technology Perspectives.

Support for the E4 Programme

The first phase of the E4 Programme (2014 to 2017) was made possible thanks to the generous contributions of the Government of Denmark and the European Commission.

The second phase of the programme (that commenced in 2018), is part of the IEA Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP), which aims to collaborate with partner country governments on all aspects of their clean energy transitions with support from a range of donors including Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Learn more about the CETP

Training

As part of the E4 programme, the IEA organises the annual Energy Efficiency in Emerging Economies Training Week, a five-day training event dedicated to sharing experience with planning, implementing and evaluating energy efficiency policies in emerging economies. Launched in 2015, these events have now brought together over 1,500 next generation energy efficiency professionals from more than 120 countries, primarily from government institutions and their supporting organisations in emerging economies.

The aim of these training events is to equip junior energy efficiency policy makers with knowledge and skills to be more effective in their roles. Participants become part of the international energy efficiency community with a large support network to call upon as they progress through their careers.

In addition to the training weeks, the Energy Efficiency in Emerging Economies Programme hosts open access, self-paced online training courses in Energy Efficiency Indicators: Fundamentals of Statistics and Essentials for Policymaking. The Energy Efficiency Indicators online training courses complement the training weeks by sharing methods and best practices in the development of energy efficiency indicators and the use of indicators for implementing more effective policy.

The E4 Programme also conducts a series of webinars in partnership with different governments and organisations in the E4 countries and regions. The webinars cover different topics on energy efficiency relevant to the context of emerging economies including multiple benefits, investment, cooling, and more.