In May – June 2022, Energy Peace Partners (EPP) travelled to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo to start gathering data on the peace benefits of Peace Renewable Energy Credit (PREC) funded renewable energy projects.

EPP, the I-REC authorized issuer for the DRC, has worked with Nuru since 2020 to register and issue P-RECs from multiple Nuru solar projects in the country and has helped facilitate the sale of Nuru’s P-RECs to corporate buyers like Microsoft and Google. Microsoft’s 2020 purchase of P-RECs from Nuru’s 1.3MW solar mini-grid financed an additional ‘social impact’ project, in the form of the deployment and connection of streetlights in the Ndosho neighbourhood of Goma. The streetlights were turned on in March 2020.

The data collection piloted EPP’s monitoring and evaluation framework, focusing on a comparative assessment of two neighbourhoods: Ndosho, the beneficiary of the P-REC financed project, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Mugunga, which has no public lighting and generally very low levels of electrification. Nuru will be expanding its electricity provision to Mugunga in the very near future through its Goma II initiative (a larger solar mini-grid being built in Goma).

The data collection effort involved a combination of household surveys and focus group discussions, and was subsequently analysed using EPP’s ‘Positive Peace Calculator’ methodology to generate estimates of SDG indicators (short- and medium-term outcomes in EPP’s theory of change), as well as positive peace scores (longer-term impacts in EPP’s theory of change).

Key findings:

• The results show that the overall levels of positive peace in Ndosho are higher than that in Mugunga, by approximately nine percent. Ndosho scores higher on six of the eight positive peace pillars, the exceptions being ‘Equitable Distribution of Resources’ and ‘Sound Business Environment’. The results also show that although Ndosho scores better than Mugunga on 19 of 26 measured indicators, achievement of SDGs remains low across both communities.

• The survey shows a heightened sense of security in Ndosho compared to Mugunga, with 39 percent of respondents claiming they feel safe in the former compared to just 13 percent in the latter.

• Both survey indicator data as well as FGD data also emphasize the particular effects of street-lighting for women and girls, with respondents stating that women profited more by the street lighting, enabling them to conduct trade at night as well as a reduction in the threat of sexual assault.

The nature of the intervention (P-REC funded streetlights), the lack of field collected comparable baseline data, and the particular research design (a product of budget considerations) used in the pilot do not allow causal conclusions to be drawn from electrification and public lighting to more peaceful outcomes. Nonetheless, the comparatively better situation in Ndosho is instructive, and allows EPP to be cautiously optimistic in its hypothesis that increased investment in renewable energy access can be used as a peacebuilding tool.