UEMI Newsletter | September 2025 Edition

Thamires Pecis
Sep 30
3 min read

We are excited to share with you the latest updates, insights, developments

and ongoing projects from the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative.

We appreciate your engagement in shaping sustainable urban mobility solutions.

Stay tuned for inspiring stories, key milestones, events, and upcoming opportunities to collaborate. Let’s keep driving change together! 🌱🚀

MobiliseHER

Together with C-HED and PRIA, we organised a two-day workshop in Kochi under the MobiliseHER project. Local councillors, government officials and 17 CSOs joined to co-create solutions for safer, more inclusive transport. Ideas ranged from a unified transport card to more opportunities for women in the mobility workforce.

The second STREnGth_M webinar, co-hosted by UEMI and UN-Habitat, was moderated by Oliver Lah and showcased innovations from e-buses in Bogotá to battery-swapping in Africa and affordable EVs in Asia, while also addressing financing and infrastructure challenges.

On 22 September, our consortium partners met with the EU Horizon Europe Commission in Brussels for a productive review meeting of the Trans-Safe Project. Oliver Lah represented UEMI, bringing in our perspectives to the discussion.

Strength_M

Coming Next eBRT2030

On 22-23 October, UEMI will be present at the General Assembly of the eBRT2030 project in Istanbul. This annual gathering brings together around 40-50 partners from across the

consortium including companies, international organisations and research institutions, to exchange on progress and coordinate next steps.

As part of the International Cluster, UEMI is working with partners in Curitiba, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Kigali to advance pilots of electric BRT systems. The General Assembly will be a key moment to strengthen collaboration and align future actions within this cluster.

E-Warmi

Our colleague Alexandra Suasnavas interviewed Maria Paulina Romo Mosquera, president of Grupo Entregas, a partner of the E-Warmi project. She highlighted how diversity is key to making the sector more inclusive and fair.

SESA

The SESA project is now coming to an end and to mark the project’s closing, Edmund Teko prepared the following highlight on UEMI’s role and contributions within SESA:

“All too soon, the Smart Energy Solutions for Africa (SESA) project (SESA) project is drawing to a close at the end of September 2025. UEMI has been at the heart of the SESA project, helping to turn innovative ideas into practical, scalable energy solutions for communities across Africa. Through its capacity-building work, UEMI has made training widely accessible by integrating courses on e-mobility, smart microgrids, clean cooking, and solar energy into the NUA Campus platform, while also creating dedicated materials on electric vehicle retrofitting and battery safety. These resources, alongside webinars and regional training events in Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, and Morocco, have empowered practitioners, local governments, and entrepreneurs to drive change in their own contexts.

UEMI has also supported the growth of local innovators by contributing to the SESA Catalogue of Sustainable Energy Solutions and SESA Toolbox; and guiding the evaluation of small and medium-sized enterprises through the project’s Calls for Entrepreneurs, with a strong emphasis on encouraging women-led businesses. At the same time, it has played a key role in supporting Living Labs across nine countries, fostering collaboration between local actors and innovators to pilot clean cooking fuels, second-life battery microgrids, and other cutting-edge solutions.

On the policy and scale-up side, UEMI has developed and reviewed concepts for new energy solutions, supported pre-feasibility studies such as stand-alone solar systems for livelihoods in Malawi, and conducted policy roadmaps to remove barriers to technologies like second-life battery storage in Ghana and solar irrigation in Rwanda. Through all of this, UEMI has ensured that SESA’s results are not only visible but ready for replication, helping to build a strong foundation for sustainable energy transitions across the continent.

As the SESA project comes to a close in the coming days, UEMI’s contributions stand out as a cornerstone of its success, ensuring that the knowledge, partnerships, and innovations developed will continue to inspire and shape sustainable energy transitions across Africa well beyond the project’s lifetime.”

We Drive Change

We Drive Change is UEMI’s new platform dedicated to empowering women through electric mobility. It shares stories of women leading change, highlights training and job opportunities, and advocates for more inclusive and accessible transport systems.

A key part of the platform is the Impact Stories series. In this space we spotlight the women whose ideas and determination turn sustainable-mobility concepts into lasting change from our projects. You can read one of here.

We appreciate your interest in our work. Don’t forget to explore more on our blog and follow UEMI on LinkedIn for regular updates.