FCDO’s investments in piloting and scaling e-mobility solutions
Landscape review
This landscape review lays out the recent investments FCDO has made in the e-mobility space, our findings across these investments, and recommendations for further research and discussion. For the review we were especially interested in understanding the type of interventions FCDO has supported, the outputs, outcomes and impact of interventions, and outstanding areas of opportunity for future FCDO work and investments to unlock impact.
What type of support has FCDO offered for e-mobility?
UKAID supports a range of interventions, from start-ups or early-stage innovators to country governments and international organisations. The investments identified by this landscape review largely focus on four key types of support: research and advocacy, capacity development, technical assistance and grant funding.
National partnerships have been a key focus of FCDO’s investments, with a focus on establishing or improving infrastructure in partner countries for e-mobility. For example, UKPACT has delivered 25+ e-mobility infrastructure projects mainly via country partnerships since 2018. Some examples include (i) supporting Thailand in developing and subsequently adopting an electric vehicle policy that considers lessons learned from the UK; (ii) Accelerating the adoption of electric buses in Colombia via technical assistance to three cities, helping them to integrate electric buses into their fleets, Similarly, through PHENOMENAL FCDO has invested £3.4 million into proof-of-concept for e-bus purchasing and surrounding charging infrastructure in Jordan. The program has also spent £2.5 million to support the purchasing of e-taxis for Egypt’s largest taxi company.
Transforming Energy Access (TEA) has invested in programs that support innovation in e-Mobility. Including PREO which has funded six early-to-midstage e-mobility projects thus far, including:
Mobile Power – a battery platform allowing 3-wheelers to rent a battery pack for transport and freighting, using mini-grid electricity.
ROAM - Researching and piloting e-mobility solutions for sustainable motorbike transportation in Kenya, supporting green livelihoods.
Zembo - a start-up company that since 1029 has provided electric motorcycles and a network of solar charging stations for the boda boda market in Uganda.
Equatorial Power - a project which promotes electric mobility in Lolwe Island, Uganda, through piloting approximately 20 electric boats for fishing with charging hubs connected to solar mini-grids.
What knowledge products have been produced through FCDO research investments into e-Mobility?
FCDO’s research investments including High Volume Transport programme (HVT), Climate Compatible Growth programme (CCG), Sustainable Mobility for All (Sum4All) and Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All), have produced a range of knowledge products in e-mobility. Key publications include:
Sum4All’s Global Roadmap of Action toward Sustainable Mobility (GRA) under which e-Mobility is a key theme. As part of this, there is a ‘GRA in Action Series’ made up of publications covering topics and policy issues decision makers face today in transport.
CCG has synthesised data from its national partnerships to produce a working paper series on e-mobility identifying 9 barriers to e-mobility integration (around upfront costs, governance, technology uptake) and offering potential solutions, as well as 18 practical actions stakeholders can take to promote enabling environments for e-mobility in Southeast Asia, such as business models, green finance, policy mix, and governance.
At an international level, HVT produced a briefing note on EVs for Climate Parliament in 2020, providing key points to consider for EVs, case studies/successful country examples, and a set of recommendations for implementation. HVT has also produced scoping studies providing country and region specific evidence.
Sum4All has helped shaped the global agenda via their discussion paper “Electromobility in the Global South: An Equitable Transition Toward Road Passenger Transport Decarbonization,” which was used to rebalance the debate on e-mobility at COP26 in 2021.
CCG and Sum4All also presented a paper at COP 27, focussing on e-mobility in LMICs in Sub-Saharan Africa, emphasising how the trajectory for EVs in this setting will be different from wealthier countries.
Outstanding research and evidence gaps and priorities for future pilots to explore
Based on a landscape review of FCDO investments into e-mobility, and a consultation with e-mobility champions within FCDO and implementing partners, the FT Hub has identified the following research questions, which we think it would be valuable for future FT pilots (or FCDO projects more generally) to explore:
How does FCDO support a ‘just transition’ into the future? In other words, electric vehicles will cause major disruptions in the supply chain, so how do we support African countries as the used vehicle supply shifts toward electric while not exacerbating related issues such as income inequality?
How do e-mobility infrastructure investments connect to FCDO’s investments in other areas, such as climate and economic development?
How can academic research best support pilot testing, and vice versa?
How can FCDO collaborate with the private sector to leverage a more diversified stream of e-mobility investments in the Global South toward great access for all?
To see pilot level learning from relevant Frontier Technologies pilots, please see the profiles on our website: