RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY (SUSTAINABLE ENERGY) Energy crises at global, national and sub-national levels prevent people from achieving sustainable development. To increase access to clean and modern energy for over two billion people who have been deprived of energy services worldwide, CRADLE promotes implementation of sustainable energy (comprising renewable energy and energy efficiency) technologies via policy, capacity building, research, development and demonstration. CRADLE promotes implementation of sustainable energy technologies as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emission, stimulating economic growth, reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Our sustainable energy services include: Managing and facilitating capacity building, advising and assisting governments and international organizations to implement sustainable energy at state, local and federal levels; Undertaking renewable energy and energy efficiency resource inventory, analysis, and assessment; and Formulating sustainable energy policy and programmes for international organizations, national governments, state or provincial governments, cities and local councils; promoting implementation of sustainable energy technologies, assessing and comparatively analysing the efficiency of energy technologies. Promotion of sustainable energy implementation at sub-national regions Over-reliance of energy users in nations and regions on conventional geological energy sources (fossil and nuclear or radioactive fuels) has led to enormous problems of climate change and poses political and environmental risks. Moreover, it has failed to meet the energy needs of most people due to its over-centralisation. Therefore, we promote sustainable energy and development through implementation of new energy technologies capable of leap-frogging economic growth, social harmony and ecological soundness. Owing to the fact that cities or urban areas constitute the centers of immense consumption of conventional energy, we focus on them in the movement to change the energy use habit towards sustainable sources. CRADLE recently worked with colleagues at the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) to publish “Lagos, Nigeria: Sustainable energy technologies for an emerging African mega-city” in the book: Urban Energy Transition, published by Elsevier in March 2008. This publication demonstrates our commitment to assisting sub-national governments (states, local governments, and districts) to achieve the urgently required transition to sustainable energy.  ASSURED: A programme for realizing sustainable development for cities, towns and regions in Nigeria Alliance of Systems for Sustainable Urban and Regional Energy for Sustainable Development (ASSURED) is a programme that aims to empower sub-national regions such as cities (municipalities), towns, regions and special districts to implement and manage independent energy generation and supply systems that are based on renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. There is an emerging consensus that sustainable energy technologies are the most appropriate for achieving sustainable development globally and locally because the help in mitigating climate change, create jobs locally and provide opportunities for local-regional leaders and workforce to get involved in determining and managing the local energy choices and projects. Therefore, sustainable energy technologies promote local-regional independence of these sub-national regions from the historical and debilitating dependence on over-centralised conventional energy infrastructure, which have proven to be unreliable, rather too expensive and pollute the environment.  Moreover, the over-reliance on conventional energy technologies which are mostly and usually founded on geological energy sources (fossil fuels and nuclear or radioactive fuels) are by the vice of the fact that they are non-renewable or finite responsible for most of the enormous crisis in the energy sector. The crisis includes: exclusion of sub-national populations from the centralized grid; inadequacy, unreliability and insecurity of energy supply among other problems. Most recently, with the peaking of oil deposits in the UK and Russia, the price of oil has been rising steadily up to nearly US$ 120 per barrel thereby plunging more people who are relying on oil into pain and agony of deprivation of energy resources and services. Consequently, sustainable energy based on renewable energy sources such as solar, biomass, wind, geothermal heat, waves, and so forth combined with efficient use and conservation of energy hold the key to independence and sustainable development of poor or growing regions in Nigeria and developing nations. ASSURED is an easily justifiable programme in Nigeria, a country featuring a rather high incidence of unemployment, exclusion of stakeholders from the energy generation and supply decision process, undue emphasis on “technical fixes” by engineers, supply focused rather than demand-induced energy supply status quo.  Sustainable energy policy promotion CRADLE worked in collaboration with One Sky-the Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living-based in British Columbia, Canada and Sacramento estate in Calabar, Nigeria; to organize the Energetic Solutions international conference, which was organized from 21-27 November 2004 in Abuja (Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory) and the Niger Delta in Nigeria. CRADLE is working with HELIO International towards managing Electricity Governance Initiative (EGI) in Nigeria. The EGI is a national coalition of civil society for conducting research and assessing policy and practice aimed at improving policy on the electricity sector issues, a programme that has been undertaken to improve electricity sector policy in several nations such as India. CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION Climate change currently constitutes one of the most significant challenges facing humankind as it threatens the environment and the capacity of nations and regions to deliver the goods and services that humanity is accustomed to enjoying from the environmment. CRADLE responds to the menace by recognizing climate change issues as a priority in our programmes and seeking solutions to the problems. The highpoint of CRADLE’s work in this area is the ongoing development of the Nigerian National Working Group on climate change. In order to create synergism, this Group will be managed in combination with energy security-a closely related challenge that has been identified by the IPCC as the major trigger of climate change. This forum will focus on research and policy that integrates issues surrounding the enormous problems confronting both the energy sector and the impacts on the climate-environmental system. ECOTOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Oil and gas export by Nigeria’s rather exploitative government by the elite has destroyed agriculture and rendered 70 % to 80 % (i.e. about 126 million Nigerians) as poor in a country blessed with abundant tourism potentials. Despite the recognition of tourism as the worlds largest contributor to the economy (revenue earner), largest employment sector and the abundance of tourism potentials in developing nations (including Nigeria), significant efforts are yet to be made to reposition the sector to arrest the rather scandalous poverty afflicting 70 to 80 percent of Nigerians. CRADLE is responding to this problem by developing pro-poor eco-tourism programmes designed to enable the majority poor to participate in (and benefit from) the global tourism sector in ways that will maintain the ecological integrity of the local environment.  CRADLE is also contributing towards productivity measurement and change (improvement), organizational effectiveness, among other social, economic and political work in Nigeria. GEO-SPATIAL INFORMATION SCIENCE/SYSTEMS AND SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE CRADLE promotes the implementation of spatial data infrastructure (SDI) as a means of leveraging sustainable development under the scourge of climate change and environmental degradation. W have contributed towards global preparation for world-wide implementation of SDI by working with UNEP, through the October 2007 Consultative Meeting in Nairobi (Kenya) to develop a strategy for SDI promotion for the UN Working Group of Geospatial Information Systems and SDI. CRADLE is also developing programmes for promoting geo-information systems use and SDI for sub-national regions (states and local areas) in Nigeria and developing nations.