ACEF 2019 Draws Biggest Number of Participants in the History of the Forum

On 17-21 June 2019, 1650 energy and climate professionals from 78 countries attended the 14th Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) in Manila, Philippines. ACEF, which is one of Asia’s leading annual clean energy events, brings together a diverse community of practitioners and implementers to identify, discuss and address the key clean energy challenges we face in the region. This year ACEF draws attention to the challenge of effectively using knowledge to scale up and accelerate the deployment of clean energy. ACEF 2019 was organized by the Asian Development Bank (ABD), USAID, and Korea Energy Agency.

This year, with the theme Partnering for Impact, has the most number of attendees in the history of ACEF. A key reason for the huge success of ACEF 2019 was the additional networking opportunities, which offered a unique platform for attendees to share ideas on how they can work together to continue to drive clean energy transition in the region.

ACEF Co-Chairs David Elzinga and Peter du Pont shares what made ACEF 2019 different from the past years. “This year we focused on improving gender inclusivity. Last year we had 18%, this year we had 36% women attendees,” David said. “We tried out a few things this year, of new ways of doing things… One of the things we did was we had cross-cutting tracks with the energy and water, energy and cities, and energy and rural poverty,” Peter explained.

For the first time in its 14-year history, ACEF had five cross-sectoral thematic tracks—Energy and Livable Cities, Energy and Water Sustainability, Energy and Rural Poverty Alleviation, Energy and Innovative Finance, and Clean Energy Trends and Directions—based on the cross-cutting approach outlined in ADB’s Strategy 2030: Achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and Pacific.

The cross-sectorial approach created a wider and more inclusive discussion on how Asia’s clean energy community can partner and address key issues in parallel to meet our sustainable development goals. “Our theme this year was Partnering for Impact was really taken up by the audience, by the speakers, by everyone,” commented David. “It brought an environment of learning new things, of looking to other people saying that ‘I might have part of the solutions, but I don’t have all of the solutions. How can I partner with someone for a greater impact?’’”

ACEF also included Deep Dive Workshops (DDWs), which was co-organized by a total of 29 partners, that covers diverse topics ranging from electric vehicles to carbon capture to hydro mini-grids. There were also side events at ACEF that included ADB on the Ground and Dim Sum with Entrepreneurs, and ACEF Lunch Talks.

Due to the success of ACEF, organizers have set date for next year’s ACEF on 15-19 June 2020.

Access the summary report on ACEF 2019 here.

Watch the complete message from ACEF Co-Chairs David Elzinga and Peter du Pont here.