In Southeast Asia’s fast-moving energy transition, many of the most difficult decisions are also the hardest to discuss openly, across borders, and with the right people in the room. That’s where ETP’s SPARK initiative comes in: a deliberately small, curated, closed-door format designed to give senior policymakers the space to speak candidly about complex issues.
Peter du Pont of SIPET Connect spoke with Adritha Subbiah, Senior Programme Manager (Regional Programmes) at the Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership (ETP), hosted by UNOPS, about why SPARK was launched, what emerged from the first dialogue, and what SPARK hopes to unlock next.
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SIPET Connect: To start, could you briefly describe the role of ETP in the regional energy ecosystem, and what you’re personally working on at ETP?
Adritha: Thank you, I really welcome the opportunity to step back and reflect on why we’re doing what we’re doing.
So ETP, the Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership, is essentially a pooled fund of governments and philanthropies with a mandate to support the energy transition in the region. We focus on Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and we also have a regional window of engagement. We work across four strategic outcome areas and provide technical assistance across these areas.
The first strategic outcome is aligning policy with climate commitments, so really looking at where countries are in terms of their NDCs and what they want to achieve through the energy transition and ensuring that the policy ecosystem supports that.
The second outcome is supporting investments coming in for renewables, energy efficiency, and increasingly coal phase-down, or fossil fuel phase-out.
The third is about grids: once you have more investments and more renewables, how do you ensure grids are future-proof? How do you modernise them, extend them, and look at interconnections?
And the fourth is just transition, recognising that for all of this to happen sustainably, people and the environment have to be central to decision-making around the energy transition.
That’s broadly the role we see ourselves playing in the region. We very much see ourselves as working in partnership with governments, being a trusted partner they can turn to for technical assistance around the energy transition.
SIPET Connect: SPARK stands for Sharing Perspectives to Advance Regional Knowledge, and as a metaphor, sparking new ideas and connections. What was the motivation for ETP to launch SPARK?
Adritha: A couple of things.
First, we have a regional window of engagement at ETP, and it’s slightly newer compared to our country programmes. We have in-depth country programmes in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But the deeper we got into those engagements, we started to realise there are real opportunities for sharing lessons. Countries are at different starting points, but many of the challenges are similar, and there may be opportunities to collectively arrive at solutions that can work across contexts. That’s one reason behind SPARK.
The other inspiration came from the Wilton Park[1] format. It’s a place where they regularly convene a group of people to have targeted discussions, and it creates a trusted space. We wanted to replicate something like that for the Southeast Asian context. We were also lucky to be in that dialogue with key stakeholders from the region who were keen to see something similar in Southeast Asia.
And I think a lot of opportunities for capacity building and lesson-sharing can still feel quite “North–to-South” and top down in a sense. What we wanted to create instead was a South–to South peer learning network, where examples and solutions are more contextual and relevant.
And SPARK also helps us understand what’s required in the region. It creates space to build relationships among key policymakers and officials, understand pain points and sensitive topics, and then think through how we address them through our programming. That’s the intention behind SPARK.
SIPET Connect: You’ve chosen a very specific format, bringing together a small group of senior policymakers and experts in a confidential setting. Why this format, and how is it different from the many workshops and conferences in Southeast Asia?
Adritha: It was very intentionally designed.
We wanted to target policymakers, mid to senior-level people who have a clear sense of what’s needed and can shape things when they are back at their desks. It’s intentionally small and curated.
We also wanted to create an intimate, closed-door setting, a safe space, so we can have very open conversations. The idea is to tackle complex issues: topics that aren’t yet mainstream but really need to be discussed in the broader energy transition context.
Having a focused discussion helps in some elements of capacity building, but it also helps us come out with a clearer sense of where things stand, what needs to be done, and what ETP and others can do to support.
And another element we’re really keen on is building peer networks. Whether that’s a WhatsApp group or simply introductions across countries, we want policymakers to feel comfortable reaching out to each other. Ideally, a policymaker from the Philippines should be able to pick up the phone and call a counterpart in Indonesia about similar challenges. That’s the kind of environment we want to foster through SPARK.
SIPET Connect: The first SPARK dialogue focused on carbon markets and carbon pricing for the energy transition. What feedback did you get from participants from Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and what insights stood out?
Adritha: It was quite surprising to hear how interested policymakers are in this topic, the level of interest and the momentum building around it.
The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, emissions trading systems, these are very current issues that countries in Southeast Asia are trying to grapple with. What was really clear to us is that there’s an opportunity to ensure that the mechanisms being developed at the national level can “speak to each other,” because there’s more value you can unlock through that.
The timing of the dialogue also felt important. It was very topical, and there was a real need for the conversation. The way it was structured, with an element of capacity building, but also open discussion, worked well.
And maybe that’s the niche for SPARK: we can try to pick topics that have strong national ownership but also implications at the regional level.
SIPET Connect: A key output is the policy brief developed after each SPARK dialogue. Why is that important, and how do you see SPARK feeding into what ETP does next?
Adritha: The policy brief is our way of sharing the insights we gather through a closed-door convening. That’s a really important part of SPARK, because it puts learning into the public domain. And as a UN-hosted partnership, that’s incredibly important for us.
It also gives us an opportunity to continue working on areas that are identified for support. It informs our technical assistance programmes, and it can also help inform what our partners are doing or what we choose to do with our partners.
Just one example: following the last SPARK dialogue, we’ve continued conversations to explore the potential for ASEAN-level engagement on carbon markets and also looked at the Philippines’ ASEAN chairmanship this year and whether that creates a policy window. So that’s a very current example of how we try to take SPARK forward.
SIPET Connect: The second SPARK dialogue focused on financing the phase-down of coal. How do you view this problem and why is SPARK the right way to tackle it?
Adritha: The topic came from one of our regional projects, TRANSEND (Transition to End Coal), which looks at the asset-level coal phase-down. We were in discussions with a national utility in one of our focus countries that was keen to explore early retirement options. Our role was to provide technical assistance on what that could look like repurposing options, and critically, the financing of an early retirement.
We learned a lot from that engagement. While it did not ultimately proceed to a transaction, the engagement generated critical insights into why early retirement remains so difficult to replicate in the region.
What we also see is that there are many conversations happening around coal phase-down. Some policies have been put into the public domain, but there are also less visible conversations about how to keep commitments in place, how to ensure coal moratoriums hold, and how to explore early retirement without jeopardizing energy security .
And I feel like policymakers don’t always have a safe space to have a very open discussion about this. That was the intention behind focusing SPARK on coal phase-down financing.
The financing aspect is also where things tend to get stuck. Policy is, of course, trickier to discuss across countries, and sometimes more sensitive. But I think everyone can agree that financing is a key bottleneck, and something we need to address if we want to advance energy transition in the region.
So, I’m really hoping we can create that safe space where policymakers are honest about the challenges, and we can think through solutions together.
SIPET Connect: Given SPARK is closed-door, how can knowledge platforms like SIPET complement the dialogues and help extend the impact?
Adritha: Because the dialogue is closed-door, it’s really important to think through how we disseminate what we can share publicly, like the policy brief that comes out of SPARK.
Since the discussions aren’t in the public domain, we need to ensure that what is in the public domain is widely circulated among policymakers, civil society, technology providers, and others.
At ETP, we’re not always the best at that, because our focus is really on government and policymakers. So, I think platforms like SIPET can help extend SPARK by disseminating those learnings, reaching the wider ecosystem, and hopefully bringing in partners who can continue to work on the issues that are crucial for the energy transition in this region.
SIPET Connect: Looking ahead two to three years, what would success look like for the SPARK initiative, and what message would you leave readers about why these convenings matter?
Adritha: Success for us is that SPARK is recognised as a safe space that convenes policymakers, so it becomes a well-used platform that policymakers can turn to for capacity building and for building peer networks around energy transition topics.
Another aspect of success is that SPARK continues to inform the work ETP does, but not only ETP. We see ourselves as part of a wider ecosystem, so ideally it also helps inform the work of others on the energy transition.
It’s a very curated, intimate convening, and for a busy policymaker, I think that’s exactly what they need. You need the headspace, a conducive environment, and a peer network to talk through these issues. Ideally, that’s what we’re creating through SPARK.
[1] Wilton Park is an executive agency sponsored by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) that convenes small, high-level policy dialogues designed to enable candid exchange and build trust among decision-makers.