In order to design effective, participatory and sustainable energy access interventions that are in sync with real community priorities, it is necessary to understand and capture nuances of community energy needs and preferences across the target population.

The CHOICES project (see Box 1, overleaf) aimed to empower the local people of Blue Crane Route Municipality (BCRM) in South Africa’s Eastern Cape to assess their own energy needs and how these needs might be met.

This briefing was funded by REEEP as part of the CHOICES project ‘Community and Household Options in Choosing Energy Services’ — a partnership between OneWorld Sustainable Investments, TERI and IIED in South Africa.

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