Clean Technology Fund (CTF) in the Philippines

• Clean Technology Fund (CTF) in the Philippines

  Country: Philippines

  Sector/Subsector: Transport/Energy Efficiency

  Participatory Approach: Consultation

  Participatory Tools:

  Tool 1: Stakeholder Analysis and Consultation
  Tool 4: Participation Plan
  Tool 5: Communications Strategy
  
  Source: ADB and CIF. 2012. Stakeholder Engagement in Preparing Investment Plans for the Climate Investment Funds: Case Studies from Asia
  
  
  Background: The Philippines is one of the few countries where renewable energy already accounts for a significant proportion of the country’s primary energy supply (43%).  In 2008, the government endorsed an energy road map, which focused efforts on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the power and transport sectors by developing renewable energy. In 2009, the Philippines was selected to receive funding via one of the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) main funds, the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) to develop an investment plan focused on three main areas: development of renewable energy sources e.g. solar, improvements in energy efficiency through demand side management, and development of sustainable transport systems.
  
  The Philippine Department of Energy (DOE), mandated to deliver renewable energy and energy efficiency, was the lead government agency for the development of the CTF investment plan. DOE collaborated with ADB, IFC, and the World Bank in plan preparation. In November 2011, the DOE requested that the CTF Trust Fund Committee (TFC) approve revisions in the original investment plan. The proposed revisions were confined mainly to ADB co-financed components and included the dropping of the solar energy project and the inclusion of a sustainable transport project to increase the adoption of electric tricycles (e-trikes) for public transport.
  
  Before the revised investment plan was approved by the CTF TFC, several Philippine CSOs (including advocacy NGOs and organizations involved in renewable energy and electric vehicle development) registered their dissatisfaction with the consultation process, asserting that consultation on the changes in the original investment plan had been inadequate. In particular, CSOs expressed concerns about the justification for dropping renewable energy from the ADB component and the design of the proposed e-trikes project. Several CTF Trust Fund donors supported CSOs’ push for additional consultations on these changes. As a result, the approval of the investment plan was suspended pending a relevant consultation process.
  
  In response, broader consultations were developed by the DOE and ADB to address the concerns raised by civil society and endorsed by members of the CTF TFC over the lack of adequate consultation on the revision of the investment plan and the design of the e-trikes project. DOE and ADB invited a range of CSOs, the private sector, and other interested parties to participate in consultations regarding the CTF’s revised country investment plan.  Consultations were held with officials of national and local government agencies, industry executives and representatives, and international consultants (technology and policy). Drivers participating in the e-trike pilot program in Mandaluyong were interviewed, and representatives from the local power sector were consulted as well.
  
  Lessons/Insights:
  
  The consultation process on the change in scope of the CTF provides important lessons regarding the value of planned stakeholder participation and consultation in the project preparatory process to assess industry capacity, secure public sector support, and provide the opportunity for consumer and civil society inputs. Initial government participation in the preparation of the initial CTF investment plan was strong. However, no comprehensive stakeholder analysis or consultation plan or targeted communications strategy was evident. As a result, the consultations failed to consider or appropriately include important stakeholders such as transport consumers or relevant CSOs, which might have a provided a richer context for the project design and enabled the identification of implementation partners or alternative approaches.
  
  While the intensive three-day consultation workshop covered the core issues of concern to CSOs and led to alternative proposals and actions from the government (DOE) and ADB addressing some of these concerns, the process failed to deliver adequate consensus on the change in focus of the investment plan. The complex presentations left too little time for discussions and for the outcome of each workshop to be clarified before the next item on the agenda was tackled. The approach of inviting different sets of stakeholders to each workshop according to their interests also contributed to the continuity problem and meant that no final synthesis of the consultations could effectively be developed by the end of the last day.
  
  Conclusions
  1) CTF funding provides the Philippines with an important opportunity to strengthen its planning for clean energy development and to jump-start transformative action in the energy and sustainable transport sectors. However, holding consultations on the investment plan and its revision only when pressed to do so and revising the plan without adequate consultation diminished this opportunity.
  
  2) On the other hand, the CIF gave no specific guidance regarding consultations, and project details in the original investment plan were technical, not detailed, and uncontroversial. ADB’s development and review of its country strategies (CPS) (hyperlink to section 2 landing page) would have been an appropriate model to apply in the development of the investment plan and might have avoided some of the mistrust and criticisms over the lack of consultation that have dominated recent dialogue on the CTF.
  
  3) The circumstances surrounding the preparation of the May consultations—the fragility of the steering group process; deadline pressures from the government, the CIF, and ADB; and too little leadership from the DOE—resulted in a process that, although reasonably designed and structured, failed to deliver a synthesis and consensus that would have meant full endorsement of the revised investment plan. ADB played a crucial role in establishing and persevering with the steering group process and effectively spearheaded the organization of the consultations on short notice at the request of the DOE.
  
  4) Stronger internal cooperation between the project team and the consultation team could have mended relationships with civil society critics and reduced the time spent discussing process issues during the consultations. Stakeholder participation in the consultations was nonetheless strong and effective, despite the difficulties surrounding their preparation. New information and new ideas were brought into consideration, and new relationships and working groups were established to take the work forward.
  
  5) Further project-level consultations will be necessary to reach consensus on the final project content of the investment plan.
  
  Additional recommendations on how to make the consultation process more effective in developing climate change investment plans as well as a summary of the benefits of CSO participation are included in the boxes below. (link red text to CIF boxes below)