AMORE Partners

The Alliance for Mindanao Off-Grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) program is a project of the United States Agency for International Development that is being implemented by Winrock International in partnership with the Philippine Department of Energy, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and Mirant Philippines. New alliances are aggressively being pursued with other public and private sector partners in support of the program’s many integral components.

Lead Partners

United States Agency for International Development
As the United States’ principal foreign assistance agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works to support long-term and equitable economic growth and advances US foreign policy objectives of expanding democracy and free markets while improving lives in developing countries like the Philippines.

To promote the Philippines’ development, USAID has been implementing aggressive, broad-ranging activities in the country’s poorest provinces in its southernmost island of Mindanao. These activities aim to improve the business climate in the region and make its economic growth more equitable, reintegrate former combatants into the economy, and promote the use of environmentally friendly renewable energy systems. All of these goals are addressed by the AMORE program. Other USAID programs in Mindanao seek to strengthen local government units and address population and health problems.

Department of Energy (DoE)
Total national electrification has been a thrust of the Philippine government for the last 30 years. Past electrification programs, however, have been hampered by geographical as well as financial constraints. This time, the government is devoting more efforts to this imperative task through the “O Ilaw” - since renamed Expanded Rural Electrification - program of the Philippine Department of Energy (DoE), which encourages greater private sector investment and participation in all energy activities of the government. Foreign aid agencies, especially USAID, have also been consistently providing financial and technical assistance to the government towards its goal of national electrification.

The DOE, in coordination with attached agencies, has constantly adopted programs in support of the Government’s poverty alleviation efforts through wider access to electricity supply and services: (i) Accelerated Barangay Electification Program (ABEP) in 1999, (ii) O’ Ilaw Program from January 2000 to March 2003, and (iii) Expanded Rural Electrification Program in April 2003.

The AMORE program of USAID and Winrock International aims to support the DoE in its goal of electrifying all barangays in the country by 2006, specifically in the Mindanao region in Southern Philippines, where 1,882 communities were still unenergized as of June 2004. The AMORE program pledged to initially fund the energization of at least 160 remote rural communities in Muslim Mindanao by 2004.

Mirant Philippines
In 2001, Mirant Philippines, the country’s largest energy producer, committed $20 million under its Project BEACON (Barangay Electrification Assistance for Countryside Development) to bring electricity to more than 1,000 small communities in the Philippines as part of the government’s “O Ilaw” rural electrification program, which was launched to boost economic development and improve living conditions in remote rural communities in the country. This project is currently the largest private-sector project of its kind in the country.

Mirant has teamed up with the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Winrock International in cooperation with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The 160 barangays under AMORE are part of the 1,000 communities the electrification of which Mirant has pledged to support.

In 2002, Mirant donated P35 million worth of solar photovoltaic battery charging stations, households battery systems and streetlights for 10 barangays in Tawi-Tawi and two in Basilan, also under AMORE.

Stand-alone solar photovoltaic solar systems will soon be installed in close to 1,300 households and 42 community centers, as will 84 solar-powered streetlights, in 42 barangays of former rebel combatants in Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga City, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato, with the aid of the P17 million that Mirant recently turned over to AMORE to finance the systems.

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM is a region located in the southern portion of Mindanao which includes the mainland provinces of Maguindanao and Basilan and the traditional island centers of Muslim economic, political and cultural activities, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Covering approximately 12,000 square kilometers – about four percent of the country's total land area – and with a population of more than two million predominantly Muslim inhabitants, the ARMM is the poorest region in the Philippines today.

The Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) program of USAID and Winrock International works in remote rural communities in the said region, as well as in some provinces in Western and Central Mindanao.

Winrock International
The Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) program is part of Winrock International’s drive to expand the use of clean, renewable energy technologies worldwide. Winrock’s Clean Energy Group works in coordination with local communities, governments, financial institutions, non-government organizations, and other partners.

Based in the U.S., Winrock primarily works in USAID-assisted developing countries to help them establish programs that integrate environmental and economic sustainability. With this, Winrock increases the availability of clean and affordable renewable energy in developing countries for economic development and natural resource management.

Other Partners