From Aid to Markets: Evaluating a Humanitarian Energy Transition in Kenya’s Refugee Contexts
Capability Area: Market Systems Development & Financial Inclusion
The Challenge
Humanitarian contexts have traditionally relied on aid-based delivery models, particularly in essential services like energy. While necessary in the short term, these approaches often create dependency, distort local markets, and fail to deliver sustainable, scalable solutions.
In Kakuma and Kalobeyei in Turkana County, refugee and host communities faced severe energy poverty characterized by: heavy reliance on firewood and diesel; high household energy costs; limited access to clean and reliable power; and, weak private sector presence in last-mile energy delivery.
The Humanitarian Market-Based Energy Access (MBEA) project sought to fundamentally shift this paradigm: from aid distribution to sustainable, market-driven energy access.
At the end of the seven-year programme, stakeholders needed to understand:
- whether this transition had truly taken root,
- how markets had evolved, and
- what it would take to scale and sustain the model.
Why This Assignment Matters
Market systems approaches are increasingly promoted in development, but evidence of what works in fragile and humanitarian settings remains limited.
An end-term evaluation of MBEA was therefore critical to:
- assess whether market-based models can function effectively in displacement contexts,
- understand how energy access links to livelihoods and financial inclusion, and
- generate lessons for replication across similar humanitarian ecosystems globally.
Beyond serving as an evaluation, this was also a test of whether systems change is possible in one of the most constrained environments.
Our Approach
We applied a systems-oriented evaluation framework grounded in OECD/DAC criteria, combining rigorous data analysis with a deep understanding of market dynamics.
Our approach included:
- Robust mixed-methods data collection: Engaging households (a majority refugees), alongside key informant interviews and focus group discussions, to capture quantitative outcomes and lived experiences.
- Market systems lens: Assessing not only adoption and access, but:
- evolution of supply chains
- private sector participation
- financing ecosystems
- behaviour change dynamics
- Livelihood and financial inclusion analysis: Examining how energy access translated into:
- enterprise growth
- income generation
- access to credit and financial services
- Phased programme assessment: Analysing the project’s evolution from:
- pilot (product introduction),
- to scale (market expansion),
- to sustainability (market strengthening and exit readiness)
- Sustainability diagnostics: Identifying where market systems were:
- self-sustaining,
- emerging, or
- still dependent on external support
What We Delivered
The evaluation generated a comprehensive, system-level understanding of humanitarian energy markets, including:
- Evidence of large-scale impact, such as: households reached with solar solutions, increased electricity access, reduced household lighting costs, drop on generators reliance.
- Clean cooking transition insights including reduction in open-fire use and the strong adoption of improved cookstoves, with constraints in higher-tier technologies
- Market development outcomes including improved awareness of and local purchasing of clean energy technologies; emergence of local vendors, stove production units, and distribution networks; and, strengthened partnerships between private companies and financial institutions
- Financial inclusion results such as loans disbursed to clean energy enterprise and identification of structural barriers limiting refugee access to formal finance
- Livelihood and employment effects such as jobs creation with strong youth and women participation and growth of small businesses enabled by productive-use energy (PUE) technologies
- Systemic insights and recommendations such as pathways to scale market-based energy models; strategies for strengthening financing ecosystems; and, critical investments needed in after-sales services, skills, and policy alignment
The Impact
The evaluation provided stakeholders with clear evidence that market-based energy access is not only viable, but transformative, in humanitarian settings, enabling:
- A shift from aid dependency to functioning local energy markets
- Stronger private sector engagement and investment pipelines
- Integration of energy access with livelihoods and enterprise development
- Improved environmental outcomes through reduced deforestation and emissions
- Strategic direction for scaling energy access across refugee and host community contexts
This evaluation demonstrated that: sustainable energy access in fragile contexts depends on building inclusive market systems; not just delivering products.
What This Demonstrates
This assignment demonstrates Crescent Impact Analytics’ ability to evaluate and shape complex market systems interventions in humanitarian and fragile environments. It highlights our strength in:
- Applying market systems thinking to evaluation and learning
- Generating evidence that informs scalable, private-sector-driven solutions
- Linking sectoral interventions (energy) to livelihoods, finance, and resilience outcomes
- Supporting clients to transition from pilot interventions to sustainable market ecosystems
At Crescent Impact Analytics, we combine analytical rigour with systems insight to help clients design, validate, and scale solutions that move beyond aid towards sustainable impact