Scaling Up Energy Efficiency for Growth, Jobs & Energy Security

GO TO: SPEAKERS

With two-thirds of global energy wasted before it even reaches consumers—and demand rising fast from heavy industry, air conditioning, and data centers—the urgency of scaling up energy efficiency has never been greater.

This raises a critical question: how can countries unlock the untapped potential of energy efficiency to cut costs, boost jobs, and strengthen energy security?

Experts will share lessons from Türkiye and Mexico on how governments, the private sector, and development partners can work together to attract investment and overcome barriers. Drawing from the World Bank Group’s new report Power More with Less: Scaling up Energy Efficiency for Growth and Security, they will explore practical solutions for middle- and low-income countries.

Watch the replay video now and sign up to receive alerts for future live sessions.

Join the conversation with #PowerMoreWithLess

AGENDA

Introductory Video on Energy Efficiency

Welcome and Opening Remarks
Ani Balabanyan, Practice Manager, Energy & Extractives, World Bank

Presentation: Power More with Less—Scaling Up Energy Efficiency for Growth & Security
Jas Singh, Lead Energy Specialist, World Bank

Panel Discussion
- Israel Jáuregui Nares, Director General, CONUEE (Mexico)
- Esra Turan Tombak, Head of External Investments, Ministry of Environment, Urbanization & Climate Change (Türkiye)
- Ommid Saberi, Principal Industry Specialist & Global Lead, Green & Resilient Buildings, IFC
- Moderated by: Ani Balabanyan

Audience Q&A

Closing Remarks
Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director, World Bank

[Video Narrator]
Today, two-thirds of energy is wasted. At the same time, energy demand continues to soar. Energy efficiency turns loss into opportunity to power more with less, cutting waste, reducing costs, and providing 3 to 5 dollars in benefits for each dollar invested. It makes energy more affordable, reliable, and secure for millions while fostering economic growth and creating jobs. Despite its opportunities, governments don’t prioritize energy efficiency. Countries fall behind because they lack political will. Adequate financing, reliable information, and supportive policies to implement effective measures. We want to change that. A new World Bank Group report highlights successes across countries and charts a path forward to scale up energy efficiency. It calls on governments to make their own buildings more efficient and undertake policy reforms and national programs that save vast amounts of energy to benefit all consumers, including poor households. To scale up impact, governments will need to mobilize private capital, and stakeholders across the energy value chain must ramp up investments. The World Bank Group is ready to leap ahead to leverage impacts, empower institutions, advocate for knowledge, and promote partnerships. To remove barriers and unlock financing, let’s scale up and power our planet toward a prosperous, energy-efficient future. Let’s power more with less.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Hello, and thank you for joining today’s World Bank Live event. It is focused on scaling up energy efficiency for economic growth, jobs, and energy security. If you’re sharing posts on social media, please use the hashtag #PowerMoreWithLess. We often refer to energy efficiency as the first fuel of choice, the low-hanging fruit. And yet, many client countries rightfully ask us, “Can it really be done at scale?” And if so, how can governments, the private sector, and development partners step up and invest in energy efficiency? To give us some insights, we will start with a presentation by Jas Singh, Lead Energy Specialist.

[Jas Singh]
Thank you, Ani, for the introduction. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to all of you from all around the world. Thank you so much for joining today on this World Bank Live presentation on scaling up energy efficiency, powering more with less. So, despite improvements, about two-thirds of primary fossil fuel energy is still wasted, representing about 196 exajoules, which leads to an economic loss of over four and a half trillion dollars. And about a third of this is on the demand side. As seen during the recent energy crisis, energy imports make countries vulnerable to global price fluctuations and supply disruptions. Rising energy demand will affect middle and low-income countries, or MICs and LICs, which already make up about 60% of the global energy demand. This demand is supposed to rise substantially over the next decade due to rises in populations, economic development, rising living standards, and urbanization. The poor are affected by rising energy costs. While subsidized energy can improve affordability, it risks encouraging overconsumption and results in a huge fiscal burden to many governments. The good news is that energy efficiency is a low-cost resource that can address many development challenges and lead to many benefits, including energy security, economic growth, and other development goals. Energy efficiency can result in fiscal savings and boost competitiveness leading to job growth. It provides a range of co-benefits, from reduced local and global pollution to improved health and enhanced resilience. Unfortunately, energy efficiency is much slower than it needs to be to meet the global pledges announced at the COP28 in 2023 to double the rate of energy efficiency from 2% to 4% each year through 2030, and we’re only at a disappointing 1%. Energy efficiency investments will need to triple to about 1.8 to 1.9 trillion dollars each year through 2030. Part of the reason for this is energy efficiency suffers from a range of market failures and policy, technical, institutional, financial, and informational barriers. So, the World Bank is calling for countries to leap forward through leverage for scale and impacts, empower countries through capacity building, advocate for knowledge and best practices, and engage in programmatic engagements and partnerships. For the first item, what we really like to see is countries adopt market friendly policy and regulatory improvements to improve the enabling environment for private investments, to remove barriers and lower transaction costs. And because public financing is limited, we need to be much more strategic in how we deploy public and concessional financing. Governments can lead by example to showcase innovative pilots that the private sectors and others can pick up. We need to do a better job at sharing know-how and practical guidance on successful investments and bankable projects, to amplify capacity building and training, and to make sure we have strong institutional setups in every country to support scaled up programs. Institutions must be agile and able to work and influence a wide range of stakeholders. We need to advocate for countries to adopt global best practices, financing and implementation models, institutional development, and capacity building, and technical assistance will be crucial to providing the countries with these foundations for success. Earlier this year, the World Bank Group launched the Academy on Scaling up Energy Efficiency to bring together leaders and professionals to discuss best practices in energy efficiency policy formulation, program design, and successful financing and business models to scale up energy efficiency. We’re calling on countries to consider a multi-phase programmatic approach which provides a medium-term vision for countries to develop markets and to help transition from small scale pilots and demonstration projects to scaled up national programs with the necessary reforms at each step in order to achieve this required scale. The World Bank Group Global Challenge Program for Energy and multi-phase, programmatic approach provides for such structured interventions, but national programs require substantial resources, so increased donor coordination is crucial to allow us such collaboration on joint national programs and pooling of funds. Many middle and low-income countries have developed good foundations, but some have not and urgently need to do this. We also call on governments to incorporate energy efficiency into their planning documents and strategies, and put in place suitable policies and programs. It can take time to do this, but the benefits can be substantial and broad. Coordination with international partners is critical to help mobilize the necessary financing and support to achieve national scale programs. We know the main ingredients for scaling up energy efficiency. The main obstacles now are a lack of political will and access to resources, but working together, we can scale up energy efficiency and power more with less. Back to you, Ani.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you for the insightful presentation, Jas. Joining us live for today’s event are three distinguished energy efficiency experts, Mr. Israel Nares, Director General of the National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy from Mexico, Ms. Esra Tombak, Head of the External Investments Department from the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change from Türkiye, and Mr. Ommid Saberi, principal industry specialist and Global Lead for Green & Resilient Buildings in IFC. Each of our speakers will share lessons on how governments, the private sector, and development partners can work together to attract investments and overcome barriers to energy efficiency. Drawing from our recently launched report titled, “Power More with Less: Scaling Up Energy Efficiency for Growth and

[Energy]
Security,” our speakers will share practical solutions on how low and middle-income countries can scale up energy efficiency investments. Welcome, dear panelists, and let’s start our discussion. Jas just now highlighted how energy efficiency can be the fastest and the most cost-effective way to enhance energy security, drive economic growth and jobs, and also cut emissions. Let me ask each of you to share with us how your country or organization is working to scale up energy efficiency. In your response, please give us one or two examples of some of the successes and positive impacts you’ve had so far. Let me first pass the floor to Mr. Israel to share his experience from Mexico.

[Israel Jáuregui Nares]
Energy efficiency in Mexico in a formal and institutional fashion has only been there for 40 years and has been developed through different institutions, and actions, and energy efficiency programs at a different scale in different sectors. In this sense, we started with the two national companies, one that was focused on generating electricity, to create the necessary steps to foster energy efficiency. The Mexican government created then UNAI

[CONUEE]
, the National Committee for Energy Efficiency, that allowed us to follow up on this and monitor the situation, creating two groups, one for our country, and another for the northern region of the country. These two groups were also supported by the national companies and state companies. We also promoted different programs of energy efficiency, creating an infrastructure that, nowadays, supports a very important market of products and services that are specifically designed to generate such energy efficiency. In Mexico, today, we have 35 official standards for the country focused on energy efficiency, also grounded in a robust infrastructure that allows us to monitor compliance through 116 labs, 40 accreditation organisms, and 200 inspection units. All of these have been accredited through accreditation units and are supervised continuously by the community, and all of these are private. Nowadays, we have associations that include specialized companies on energy efficiency with different national committees and state committees that are focused on energy efficiency as well. Nowadays, in Mexico, most schools, and public and private centers already have an offering of careers and degrees on energy efficiency. But nowadays also, we have a new law in Mexico that focuses on energy transition with a mention of energy efficiency for the private sector to install ways to measure savings and efficiency and also the economic impact. That is our current situation in Mexico.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Israel. Let me pass next to Ms. Esra to share her experience from Türkiye.

[Esra Turan Tombak]
Thanks, Ani. It is really a pleasure

[to be]
here. I want to share Türkiye’s energy efficiency policy, focusing on public buildings. In the last 20 years, energy efficiency has been at the core of Türkiye’s energy efficiency policy, and with a proven 40% energy savings’ potential, the building sector has a significant role in this policy. Parallel to the government’s energy efficiency policy, in 2019, with the World Bank’s support, Türkiye has started a robust energy renovation program to reduce energy use and to ensure energy security in the public buildings. With ongoing energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, having about a 1-billion-dollar budget, approximately 1,500 public buildings will be renovated, including some parallel seismic safety improvements up to 2030. Up to now, 550 public buildings have been renovated. These buildings, public buildings include schools, university campuses, hospitals, administration buildings, and we could reach between 20% to 80% savings with a 10 years payback period. The main energy efficiency measures that are invested are building insulation, upgrading of the heating and the cooling system, use of heat pumps, upgrading of the lighting system, integration of the renewable energy system, such as rooftop solar

[panels]
and the solar thermal systems, together with energy automation and energy monitoring system to control, measure, and verify the energy efficiency measures in the buildings. Despite the multiple technical and institutional challenges we faced during the renovations, energy efficiency projects also offer a variety of economic and social benefits to us. Firstly, the interior comfort conditions increased, rose, and the operation and maintenance costs decreased in these beneficiary buildings. Secondly, energy efficiency acts as an accelerator for the construction sector. Over the last six years, we have employed more than 1,000 designers, consultants, energy auditors, the workers in the construction sector, and the market share of the efficient and innovative and qualified materials also increased about 10%. Last but not least, energy efficiency projects helped to build the technical capacity as over 300 and 500 technical staff are trained under the project activities.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Esra. Let me turn now to Mr. Ommid to share his experience of working on energy efficiency projects from the private sector side.

[Ommid Saberi]
Excellent. Thank you, Ani. At IFC, which is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, we view energy efficiency not as a cost, but as a strategic investment that unlocks economic growth, energy security, and job creation, similar to what Jas mentioned earlier. Through our EDGE program, which is short for Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies, and it focuses on energy efficiency, water efficiency, and materials’ efficiency in buildings, we have helped to shift the mindset in emerging markets by proving the business case for green buildings and using an ecosystem approach, i.e., not a single player can achieve energy efficiency alone. EDGE provides a free software, a green building standard, and a certification system that makes it easy for developers and investors to quantify savings and environmental impact. We heard from Mexico, in countries like South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam, and early days in Türkiye, EDGE has catalyzed private sector engagement by simplifying green finance. This is very key for us, how we can connect energy efficiency to financing instruments, such as green finance taxonomy that is issued by either central banks or ministries of finance, better policy environments through incentives. For example, for the private sector, market recognition and branding is very important. Faster permits or an extra flow area, and reducing the perceived risk, i.e., the cost of energy efficiency. These efforts led us to measurable impacts. We improved building performance, reduced energy demand, and enhanced resilience. All of this happened while creating new jobs in construction, finance, retrofit, design, and certification. For the next steps, we are aiming to support reducing energy efficiency in building operations, working with our World Bank colleagues for existing buildings, and we are going to start this next year. I’m going to explain more details of the impact later. Back to you, Ani.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ommid. You all highlighted multiple benefits of energy efficiency, including energy security, jobs, fiscal savings, and other benefits. Mr. Israel, let me turn back to you. Based on your experience in Mexico, please let us know how do you see new opportunities to further scale up energy efficiency impacts.

[Israel Jáuregui Nares]
Thank you, Ani. The energy savings is an activity that is more complex than that of renewable energies as it requires great sensibility, information, and training our understanding of the areas in which we want to generate these savings as we require active participation of the different actors. In this, we’ve noticed that in order to develop a very simple program, we require the support of different professionals from different areas and specialties that will understand that generating energy efficiency for the design, implementation, and measuring impacts is important. We also require information, data, tools for its sales, and for the implementation that are specific to that program. So, in that sense, in Mexico, we estimate that the impact on energy savings falls between 150 petajoules that have been saved in the past year, specifically in these areas of residential and industrial sectors. So, today we consume 17% less than what we would have consumed if we hadn’t implemented these actions. As to offer, energy efficiency has become one of those third sources of fuel, after gas and other fuels. But this not only reduces consumption, but it also represents the opportunity to invest in energy infrastructure or the reduction of imports and other additional benefits. We see energy efficiency as a way to generate more, to power more with less.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent, Mr. Israel, and we certainly agree with that. Ms. Esra, let me turn back to you. In your earlier response, you highlighted some success and impact that Türkiye has already achieved in energy efficiency. I’m curious to know how you will further expand this and mobilize funding.

[Esra Turan Tombak]
Thanks, Ani, for the question. Türkiye has set up a clear and ambitious energy efficiency policy and developed a roadmap to achieve net zero by 2053. And besides, adopted the Second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan. The plan forces

[Türkiye]
to invest about 20 billion for energy efficiency investments to reduce energy consumption by 16% up to 2030. It is expected to cut CO2 emissions by 100 million tons. In Türkiye, the building stock is really huge, we have over 400,000 public buildings, and the ongoing renovation projects assist to introduce deeper renovations. Pilot ESCO-based contracting also helps us to test nearly zero energy building standards; and moreover, provides the basis for a sustainable national financing model for energy efficiency and long-term decarbonization of Türkiye’s public building stock. To achieve net zero emissions by 2023, the government is also strengthening the building legislation step by step by upgrading the minimum energy performance standards, putting into force the obligatory NSEEP requirements and integration of renewable energy. The Public Building Renovation Program, at the moment, displays a strong demonstration for the private sector, exposing large savings potential and with the collaboration of construction companies, finance institutions and banks, it has discussed to establish a mechanism like a super-ESCO model in Türkiye. Yes, Ani, this is the program of Türkiye.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent, many thanks. Mr. Ommid, let me now turn to you and request

[you]
to share the experience of IFC and how you have managed to mobilize commercial financing to achieve scale and make, overall, the environment more conductive for private sector engagements.

[Ommid Saberi]
Thanks, Ani. Yes. What is really interesting here is to see, and Jas mentioned it earlier, how do we use public funding to catalyze private finance? That’s really the key here for us to scale up. In the last 10 years, IFC mobilized over 19 billion dollars of our own investments in green buildings globally. That started from almost zero 10 years ago. Achieving that number was amazing. Last year only, we provided 4 billion dollars of financing for green buildings. With EDGE certified projects, we have projects in 124 countries around the world, and the value of these assets is 120 billion dollars in value. That means that a lot of other commercial banks and other multilateral banks can provide financing for those assets. We work directly with donors, with commercial banks with funds and developers to structure green loans, green mortgages, and construction finance that meets EDGE or other recognized green certification standards. EDGE certification has become a trusted benchmark for investors to help de-risk projects and attract capital at scale. We have encouraged other certification systems to improve the energy efficiency requirements as well. For example, in some cases, they improve the energy efficiency requirements for buildings from 5% to 20% as a minimum, as well as the requirements for site audits and construction certifications to ensure that what is certified is actually built. Our work includes portfolio retrofits, energy efficiency, commercial assets, as well as private sector buildings like hospitals, schools, warehouses, office buildings, and housing, mainly even affordable housing and social housing, especially in Africa, Asia, Latin America, where energy efficiency is now a driver for inclusive growth. This investment resulted in an annual saving of 4,700 gigawatt hours of energy, 138 million meters cube of water, and 2.7 million tons of CO2 emissions. This proves that energy efficiency is bankable and impactful. Back to you, Ani.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you very much, Ommid. I think it’s pretty impressive to hear some of the outstanding results and impacts and also the financing that has been mobilized so far. Now I’m going to turn to all three of you and request you take literally 30 seconds and share one lesson that other countries can use if they’re looking to scale up energy efficiency investments. Ms. Esra, perhaps we hear from you first this time.

[Esra Turan Tombak]
Okay, thanks. As one lesson learned, I would like to highlight enhancing the technical capacity of the construction sector for the energy efficiency renovations. There may be regulations, strategies, but if there are not enough trained and experienced energy auditors, designers, supervision consultants, and contractors, despite the political enforcement in terms of strategy, legislation, energy efficiency measures may not turn to real savings.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent. Thank you. Mr. Israel, let me next turn to you. What would be one advice you would like to share?

[Israel Jáuregui Nares]
A good advice is to make good use of the experiences and good practices at the international level. We need to adapt and adopt these practices to each of our countries, document the measures that have been taken to obtain energy efficiency, and to recognize and inform about the benefits obtained through these measures. I believe that these are fundamental elements to obtain energy efficiency. Thank you.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you very much. Mr. Ommid, let me now turn to you. What would be your one piece of advice?

[Ommid Saberi]
Yes. In short, we should treat energy efficiency as a source of value, not as a cost. We need to make sure we align incentives, simplify the processes, build capacity and partnership to unlock private sector investment and scale impact.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent. Thank you, dear panelists. I think it’s hopefully reassuring to hear that energy efficiency can, and we have, actually, examples as our panelists shared, it can be done at scale, it can have actual material impact. It requires establishing the right ecosystem, I think, as our panelists highlighted, both from building the right policies, standards, certifications, building and empowering the right institutions, and coming up with the right financing mechanisms. So, with that, we will now move to our next segment of the discussion where we will take some questions from the audience. As a reminder, everyone can pose their questions in the live chat and we have our experts actually who are responding to these questions. We have two video recorded messages, so I will request that we first take the question from Mexico.

[Karen Mora]
Hi, this is Karen Mora, Head of Sustainability at Fibra Uno. We are Mexico’s and Latin America’s largest REIT. So, my question is, what are the mechanisms that can help ensure that the public sector policies and the private sector investment strategies in energy efficiency can remain aligned over time, particularly as technologies, cost, and climate conditions evolve, and more so in the light of the growing energy demand? Thank you for taking my question.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent. Mr. Israel, I think this is a right question to direct to you. I think Ms. Mora was asking about the mechanisms that can help ensure that the public sector policies and the private sector investment strategies in energy efficiency can remain aligned over time. Over to you.

[Israel Jáuregui Nares]
We need to recognize the growing need of national and international markets for products and services which should be greener and more sustainable to meet the environmental needs. We need to meet ever more strict norms. We need to consume green energy and decarbonization. One of the strategies, which is more viable from the economic and technical point of view, is energetic efficiency. This is why it is efficient. It is absolutely essential to have a coordinated effort from the public and the private sector to have a clear framework which is something that will be conducive to the support of the investors. This is not something easy to do. It’s not trivial. We need to have the tools that are internationally recognized. Today, from the beginning of programs or actions, we need to have actions which are supported by international protocols, such as those that are provided by the organization called EVO, which contemplates ISO 50001, which can be assessed by a third party through contract, and also standards and frameworks which are clear to build the confidence of investors. This is one of the most intelligent measures that can be taken. Obviously, the government has a very

[difficult]
point. It has to work hand in hand with investors in order to obtain energy efficiency in all sectors. Thank you so much.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent. Thank you for that comprehensive response, Mr. Israel. Let’s go to our second video question, please.

[Chotika Uesampantakit]
Hi, there. I’m Chotika Uesampantakit, Economist from the Public Debt Management Office, Thailand. One of the key challenges in achieving sustainable and scalable energy efficiency lies in effectively connecting all relevant stakeholders to enable coordinated and collaborative action. Thailand is currently partnering with the World Bank Group to address this issue, and we are keen to learn from global best practices and insights. What are the most effective strategies for building strong coalitions and coordinating mechanisms to support energy efficiency at scale?

[Ani Balabanyan]
Let me direct this question to you, Ms. Esra. The representative from Thailand, from the Ministry of Finance, was asking what are the most effective strategies for building strong coalitions and coordinating mechanisms to support energy efficiency at scale? Over to you.

[Esra Turan Tombak]
Thanks, Ani. Yes, it is not an easy question. It is hard to answer as there’s not one clear solution as every country has its own dynamics, hierarchy, and fragmented institutional responsibilities, especially for the energy efficiency of public buildings. Multiple line ministries, institutions, are involved in the process, and this fragmentation, most of the time, creates administrative inefficiencies and delays in the decision-making processes. Different mechanisms may be established. One of them may be a project monitoring evaluation committee that is composed of the managers of the line ministries to take decisions, monitor, and evaluate the project activities. And the other one can be a working group, composed of the technical staff to discuss the technical issues, energy audit reports, technical specifications, measurement verifications, which measures should be implemented for higher savings and so on. If I give an example from Türkiye, in our energy efficiency project, two main ministries executed the project, the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, the main implementing body, and the responsible from the construction and renovation of the public buildings. And the other implementing body was the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. They were responsible for setting strategies and obligations. A working group was established with two ministries at the beginning, and a dedicated project implementation unit composed of architects, engineers, experts were established within the Minister of Environment and Urbanization. The Minister of Energy supported the project implementation unit for the project activities such as building, selection, energy audits, and measurement verification. And also, parallel to the project activities, there was an obligation from the Minister of Energy that the public buildings should reduce their energy consumption by 30%. So, this helped the project activities. We could manage to have contact with the beneficiaries, and they were willing to have this project. Although at the beginning it was planned to have a project monitoring, consisting of a committee consisting of representatives from the ministries, it didn’t work as we planned. Instead, the project implementation unit contacted the technical departments of the line ministries one by one and confirmed the selection of the beneficiary institutions and decided on the investments. A memorandum of understanding was signed with the beneficiary institutions before the renovations, and we have consensus on the measures to be applied. During the renovation, with close coordination, we ensure what is needed in these buildings, what can we do, and the line ministries supported this renovation, so the project has a success at the end. Thank you.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Excellent. Thanks, Ms. Esra. I think that was a really good question, indeed. As Ms. Esra’s response has also highlighted, energy efficiency is complex. It takes multi-sectoral concerted effort and good coordination, and it’s good to have the specific ways that Türkiye achieved this. So, thank you, dear panelists, for your insightful and thought-provoking discussion and takeaways. Next, we will invite Senior Managing Director of the World Bank, Mr. Axel van Trotsenburg to give his closing remarks.

[Axel van Trotsenburg]
Thank you for joining us today. Energy efficiency is not just about saving power. It is an engine for jobs, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. As our speakers have shared, unlocking the full potential of energy efficiency will require collaborative efforts between governments, financial institutions, donor partners, and the private sector. Together, we must prioritize and scale up energy efficiency policies and programs. So, how do we get there? First, governments need to make energy efficiency the heart of energy policy and planning. They need to enact policy and institutional reforms that will attract investments. Second, multilateral development banks and donor partners must align behind this agenda, helping countries strengthen policies and institutions, sharing global know-how, and providing technical assistance and support needed for ambitious national energy efficiency programs. Third, the private sector must be brought in from the onset to ensure policies and programs reflect on the ground market needs and opportunities. Together, these efforts can send a powerful signal to the market, drawing in new suppliers, increasing competition, lowering costs, and mobilizing financing at scale. The World Bank Group is committed to helping its client countries achieve universal access to reliable, secure, and affordable electricity. Energy efficiency is a cornerstone of this goal. Our new LEAP approach which stands for L, Leverage impact, E, Empower institutions, A, Advocate for knowledge, and P, Programmatic engagement and partnerships, provides a clear roadmap to place energy efficiency at the center of energy policies, planning, and programs. We are shifting towards programmatic approaches and innovative financing models with a sharper focus on leveraging private sector partnerships. Through our Scaling Up Energy Efficiency Academy, we are also mobilizing global expertise to foster partnership and share practical knowledge. Our support will drive the policy and institutional reforms needed to translate ambition into impact, helping countries become more competitive, power economic growth and job creation, and to build a more secure, sustainable, and resilient energy sector. Countries that have pursued ambitious energy efficiency reforms already see the benefits. Lower costs, stronger economies, and better jobs. Let’s work together to accelerate these efforts and steer our world towards a more prosperous, energy-efficient future.

[Ani Balabanyan]
Thank you, Axel. In the lead-up to this event, we asked all of you to respond to a live poll. We will now put the results of the poll so you can see how you responded. But the question we asked was the following: if energy efficiency is the fastest and most cost-effective way to enhance energy security, drive economic growth and jobs, and reduce emissions, why is it not already at the center of every country’s national energy strategy? And what will it take to get us there? As you can see on your screen, the overwhelming majority of you identified access to affordable financing as the major barrier that needs to be addressed. Following that, actually, three other responses received almost equal votes, which are focused on partnerships with the private sector, targeted incentives, and stronger policies and standards. I think the results of the survey response reflect the strong support for collaborative solutions. With that, I would like to thank everyone for the active participation today. We also want to thank those who posted very good questions to our experts in the live chat. We really hope that we can get this conversation going. We invite you all to download our report, use the hashtag #PowerMoreWithLess to help maintain momentum, and advocate for more investment in your countries. Thank you everyone, and goodbye.

Speakers

Moderator