The European Delegation commissioned a combined evaluation: A mid-term evaluation of an ongoing project called “Prepaid Energy. Rent to own solar home systems (off-grid)” and an ex-post evaluation of an ended project: “Increase Rural Energy Access in Rwanda through Public-Private Partnership” (IREARPPPP).

Both projects involved the promotion of off-grid solar to primary and secondary schools and to domestic users and small enterprises, where IREARPPP focused on schools and Prepaid Energy was more focused on private users. The evaluation team established evidence of which results were obtained and derived conclusions on why, and whether these results were linked to the EU intervention also seeking to identify the factors driving or hindering progress.

Especially the midterm evaluation focused on identifying key bottlenecks of actual slow–moving implementation and suggested corrective measures for a smoother implementation while the ex-post evaluation served in particular the purpose of drawing lessons for what concerns the School electrification component of Prepaid Energy.

Services provided:

• An overall independent assessment of the past performance of Prepaid Energy. Rent to own solar home systems (off-grid), paying particular attention to its intermediate results measured against its objectives;
• Key recommendations about the sustainability of the action and exit strategy;
• Key lessons and recommendations to be drawn also from the evaluation of the action Increase Rural Energy Access in Rwanda through Public-Private Partnership IREARPPP to improve current and future Actions;
• An overall independent assessment of the past performance of the project “Prepaid Energy. Rent to own solar home systems (off-grid)”, providing recommendations about the sustainability of the action and exit strategy. Key lessons learned and recommendations were drawn from the ex-post evaluation of the action “Increase Rural Energy Access in Rwanda through Public-Private Partnership IREARPPP”.