From June 7th to 9th, it was held in Campinas (State of São Paulo, Brazil) the First Meeting on Energy Research & Development Activities in South America (PRONERG), largely sponsored by the Brazilian Science and Research Council's PROSUL program. This program has the purpose of promoting technical and scientific cooperation between Brazil and other South American countries.

The Asian Regional Energy Initiative office was invited to make a presentation on the national energy conference “Energy Management in Changing Business Scenario” in October 2005, which is being organised by the Centre for Renewable Energy and Environment Development (CREED) of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), in Pilani (Rajasthan, India). It is aimed at deliberating on the changing regimes in energy management, focusing on issues such as energy conservation, energy substitution and technology management. The expected delegates for the conference are energy professionals, academicians, researchers and policy makers. A presentation on “Clean cooking fuel options for India” has been prepared.

The newest issue Journal Energy For Sustainable Development brings articles on the challenge of bringing efficient and sustainable electricity services to one billion people who lack access to electricity nowadays; a life-cycle assessment of gross carbon emissions from alternative transport fuels in India; an analysis on comparative costs of nuclear power and coal-based thermal power from the state of Karnataka in South India; a case-study of the socio- economic impact of solar home systems in rural Sri Lanka; and pilot dissemination and in-field lessons learnt for leaf litter-based biogas plants.

The United Nations (UN) Development Programme, with support from the Intermediate Technology Development Group, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organisation, hosted a seminar entitled "Smoke in the Kitchen: Health impacts of indoor air pollution in developing countries" on 8 February, 2005 in New York. The purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness among governments and UN agencies on the health impacts of indoor air pollution from household energy use, and to promote global action to reduce people's exposure to this substantial environmental health risk. A similar event was held in Washington D.C. the following day, and was hosted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The International Energy Initiative highly support this kind of initiative, in tune with its global effort launched last year to catalyse public and private sectors of developing and industrialized countries in a global clean cooking fuel initiative to bring about a worldwide substitution of solid cooking and heating fuels (biomass and coal) in developing countries with cleaner fuels in 10-15 years' time - with an emphasis on providing cleaner fuels to the poorest households (read the special issue on the subject of Energy for Sustainable Development). This initiative is crucial to the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals and the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

According to the World Health Organisation, smoke from burning solid fuels is estimated to be responsible for 1.6 million deaths each year in the world's poorest countries. Indoor air pollution affects poor women and small children far more than any other sectors of society, killing almost 1 million children under five every year. Almost one half of the world’s population still rely on solid fuels for their everyday cooking and heating; some 2.4 billion people burn biomass (wood, crop residues, charcoal and dung) and a further 0.6 billion burn coal.

This 2005 study Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: The Role of Energy Services quantifies the impact energy services have on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by analyzing the developmental impacts of energy-related interventions in Brazil, Mali, and the Philippines. The study’s findings point to several key conclusions, which are directly relevant to national strategies, aimed at achieving the MDGs.

This publication is the culmination of a joint graduate research project between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

As the 2005 review of the MDGs approaches, the UNDP hopes that this publication will help draw attention to the relationship between energy service availability and the economic and social dimensions of the MDG framework. This is particularly important given that one of the themes for the 2006/2007 cycle of the Commission on Sustainable Development will be energy for sustainable development. There is no MDG related to energy, despite the fact that reaching any of the MDGs will require a much greater quality and quantity of energy services in developing countries.