The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and many other energy access initiatives have been working hard to achieve global access to energy. The challenge to provide clean, reliable and affordable energy has proven to be a more complex problem than the current energy access initiatives anticipated. An energy poverty nexus has arisen in some communities, where energy access has served to deepen poverty rather than alleviate it. Identified from this nexus, is a need for compiling existing program evaluation data for use as a cost-effective method for program design and modification. Therefore, there is a need to identify indicators of socio-technical social value along with their parameters and their connections to the Social Value Creation Framework.
There are ten indicators identified, and eight carried through the analysis. Each indicator has multiple possible impacts to the system. A common characteristic between indicators is that indicators are not directly related to their impacts. Instead, links between indicators and impacts exist through multiple steps in the system. This observation suggests that given proper contextual understanding the design and redesign of initiatives can be routed to desired impacts. By connecting the analysis done to the Social Value Creation Framework, an economic perspective appears to be an ineffective indicator of social value. Additionally, data collected from the perspective of equipment suppliers and enterprises show that there is more depth to the impacts. Case studies that found mostly positive impacts showed a bias in their evaluation, focusing on the UNDP guidelines and not the Social Value Creation Framework.
By considering the analysis in its entirety, it is recommended for further data collection is necessary including further evaluation programming and a more unified data collection and system context incorporation are vital