Policy Paper: Community owned Solar energy projects as a catalyst for local governance, The case of Al-Gezira state

The devastating conflict in Sudan has led to a near total collapse of state institutions, leaving millions without access to essential public goods. In this vacuum, community owned solar energy projects have emerged as a convenient solution to electricity and water shortages in response to the governance crisis. This paper argues that these projects, exemplified by insights from real-life cases in Al-Gezira state, are acting as a catalyst for local governance through increasing communities’ local governance capacities in leadership, empowerment, and ownership. The paper uses a qualitative methodology that includes interviews with expert intermediaries and local community actors. The analysis follows three core elements of the Auckland City Council community governance framework (ACC) to analyze the insights and evaluate how the solar energy projects impact these specific local governance capacities. The Analysis confirms that these projects are successfully building local communities governance capacities. However, it finds that these gains are informal, highly vulnerable, and often risk reinforcing the political roles of traditional elites and is not inclusive to marginalized groups like women. The key finding of the paper is that these projects create a "governance moment" not a stable structure. To prevent these informal capacities from disintegrating, the paper strongly recommends that Donors, NGOs, social enterprises and local actors should move beyond a narrow technical focus on services delivery to invest in the formalization and institutionalization of these projects’ governance gains. This includes standardizing training, creating community networks, and officially recognizing these grassroots governance units to ensure that similar community projects can empower sustainable community governance and activate civil participation in development and politics.