.png)
1. The 2008 Oil Shock: A Turning Point for Regional Renewable Energy Cooperation in West Africa
In 2008, the world watched oil prices soar past USD 140 per barrel. For many countries, especially across the Global South, it was a breaking point. For West Africa,it was something more — a defining moment that would reshape the region's future.
Ministers gathered at the ECOWAS Conference for Peace and Security in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. While ostensibly focused on stability and conflict prevention, the meeting was overshadowed by a deeper threat: energy insecurity. The price shock was not simply an economic inconvenience. It destabilized livelihoods, undermined industrialization, and pushed several ECOWAS economies to the edge of fiscal collapse. It laid bare a simple truth:
A region that does not control its energy future is vulnerable to every shock beyond its borders.
Faced with this reality, ECOWAS chose a different path — not fifteen fragmented national reactions, but one unified regional response. Ministers agreed that the moment called for something new: an institution built from the region, for the region, dedicated to driving collective progress on renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Government of Austria and UNIDO stepped forward to help turn that vision into reality.
In 2008, ECOWAS adopted the founding regulation C/REG.23/11/08. By 2010, the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency — ECREEE — opened its doors in Praia, Cabo Verde, becoming the first regional sustainable energy centre on the African continent. It was born from crisis — and from a deeper realization:
Energy security is not something countries build alone. It is something regions build together.
Over the years, that vision took shape in both policy and practice. ECOWAS adopted its Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policies — the first fully harmonized regional sustainable energy framework on the continent, setting joint targets for 2030. Since then, markets for utility-scale, distributed, and decentralized renewable energy solutions have steadily expanded across West Africa — not by accident, but by design.
2. FromRegional Pilot to a Global Public Good
What began in West Africa became a global model.
Working with regional economic communities across the Global South — and with financial support from Austria — UNIDO helped replicate and expand the ECREEE model. This gave rise to the Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres (GN-SEC): ten centres spanning Africa, the Arab region, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Asia–Pacific.
Global challenges need glocalized solutions.
Today, GN-SEC covers more than 120 countries — including most of the world's least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) — shaping the energy futures of over 2.2 billion people through regional policies, regulations, and standards. These centres are now fully independent entities, serving as critical public infrastructure for the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), supported by multiple donors and partners.
The centres support member states in shaping their unique energy transition pathways. They reduce barriers to integrated and inclusive sustainable energy markets, facilitating agreement on common targets and harmonized policies. They strengthen regional quality infrastructure, foster investment mobilization, and work to bundle projects and opportunities across borders — from the regions, for the regions.
Hosted by UNIDO, GN-SEC serves as a global platform for South–South and triangular cooperation, facilitating the exchange of best practices and technology cooperation across regions and international partners.
3.Today: A Fossil Fuel Crisis Larger Than 2008
Almost twenty years later, history is repeating — this time on a larger scale.
Current international developments, compounding existing supply disruptions, have triggered — according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) — one of the largest shocks to global energy markets in modern memory.
Maritime corridors through which a significant share of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows are heavily constrained. Tankers sit idle. Pipelines run dry. Prices rise rapidly. Oil surges past USD 100 per barrel. Gas prices spike in tandem. Diesel, jet fuel and LPG follow in lockstep.
Across the Global South, governments scramble. Fuel quotas, rationing schemes, energy emergencies, price freezes, car-free days — each country reaching for whatever tools it has, but acting alone. The responses differ. The underlying problem does not.
The world turns again to its supposed safety valve: emergency reserves.
Thirty-two IEA member states collectively release an unprecedented 400 million barrels ofstrategic oil stocks — the largest coordinated emergency release in the Agency's history. Gas storage facilities across Europe and Asia are drawn downin parallel.
4. TheLast Reserve – Regional Renewable Energy Cooperation
For some countries in the Global South, it feels like 2008 all over again. Despite significant progress in renewable energy — particularly in the power sector —the pattern is familiar. It is a reminder of a truth the world has known for years but has still been too slow to act on: the last energy reserve is not another emergency release.
The last reserve is a rapid, whole-of-society transformation toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.
This must be a structural shift — a profound opportunity to address energy security and climate change simultaneously, while laying the foundations for economic diversification and inclusive, sustainable industrialization. It also requires directing far greater investment toward the Global South — particularly LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS — where both the need and the potential are greatest.
Regional cooperation is an accelerator of this transition. Integrated regional energy systems move faster, reach further, and leave fewer people behind than fragmented national efforts ever could. Joint approaches unlock economies of scale, reduce perceived investment risks, and facilitate equal progress across the region — leaving nobody behind.
5. IVECF: Powering Stability through a New Green Global Business Model
Against this backdrop, the upcoming International Vienna Energy and Climate Forum (IVECF) — guided by the motto Powering Prosperity, Security and Stability — could not be more timely.
The Forum's Vienna Call to Action urges the world to move beyond fragmented efforts toward integrated, system-wide, and multilateral solutions.
It positions sustainable energy, green industrialization, and climate resilienceas mutually reinforcing drivers of security, stability, and prosperity for all. It outlines a new global green business model: delivering more value for a growing population while using fewer fossil fuels, fewer materials, and generating less waste.
The Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres (GN-SEC) continues to play a vital role in supporting countries along their unique transition pathways —from the regions, for the regions — thinking globally, acting regionally, and implementing nationally.
Further information:
1. Platform of the Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres (GN-SEC), hosted by UNIDO, in Vienna. www.gn-sec.net
2. ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), situated in Cape Verde, www.ecreee.org
3. Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) of the Arab League, situated in Egypt, www.rcreee.org
4. SADC Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SACREEE) of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), situated in Namibia, www.sacreee.org
5. East African Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (EACREEE) of the East African Community (EAC), situated in Uganda, www.eacreee.org
6. Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for Central Africa (CEREEAC) of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), situated in Angola, www.cereeac.org
7. Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy andEnergy Efficiency (CCREEE) of the Caribbean Community, situated in Barbados, www.ccreee.org
8. Pacific Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PCREEE) of the Pacific Community, situated in Tonga, www.pcreee.org
9. Clean Energy Centre of the EconomicCooperation Organisation (CECECO), situated in Azerbaijan, www.cececo.org
10. Renewable Energy and Energy EfficiencyCapacity for the Hindu-Kush Himalaya (REEECH) hosted by the InternationalCentre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), situated in Nepal, https://www.icimod.org/initiative/reeech/
11. SICA Centre for Renewable Energy andEnergy Efficiency (SICREEE) of the Central American Integration System (SICA),situated in El Salvador, www.sicreee.org