Promoting Low-carbon Electric Public Bus Transport in Mauritius Project Objective:  To promote capital investments into developing sustainable transport infrastructure to reduce transport-related GHG emissions in Mauritius to mitigate climate change; engage and build technical capacities of transport-related policymakers, regulatory and other government agencies, financial institutions and the private sector. Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency. This project will support the introduction of electric buses for public bus transport in Mauritius, supporting the government’s transport energy strategy goal of increasing deployment of electric buses by 2025, reducing fossil fuel consumption, GHG emissions and pollution from transport sector. The project will also support the government in designing and promulgating conducive policy and regulatory framework for electric bus deployment, associated electric vehicle charging infrastructure and scientific disposal/recycling. The overarching goal is to support the government in transitioning the country towards a modern, low-carbon, gender-sensitive, inclusive and sustainable public bus transport system to complement other modes of low-carbon transport such as MetroExpress.  In terms of number of passenger-trips impacted, based on conservative estimates of 35 passengers carried by each full-length e-bus (typical full capacity of 50 passengers) or midi e-bus (typical full capacity of 40 passengers) per long route or last-mile trip from Metro Express stations to neighbourhoods, and assuming each trip to cover 15 km distance; and based on an estimation of 150 km covered by each bus per day, each e-bus is estimated to offer ~350 passenger-trips every day. So 60 full-length and midi e-buses are conservatively estimated to offer ~21,000 passenger trips per day (which is 12.5% of the estimated 80,000 passenger trips per day likely to be offered by MetroExpress once it is fully operational). This works out to ~6.93 Million passenger-trips per annum (assuming 330 days of operations of buses per annum) to be provided by electric bus services that will be deployed with support from this GEF project, when all 60 buses are fully deployed and operational.     Other co-benefits that the project will generate, in terms of passenger comfort, safety and satisfaction, as well as increased usage of public transport, are difficult to quantify in advance of the project, but it is clear that they too magnify the value of the project. These benefits will be captured and reported during capture of best practices, project outcomes and lessons learned (Output 5.1) and in the project’s M&amp;E.    The project’s outputs and activities are designed not only to address key barriers, but also to complement with each other, such that the comprehensive transport planning, promulgation of conducive policy and regulatory framework and setting of electric bus deployment targets would support and lead to investments from the private sector (bus operators) which would be supported by capital subsidies and facilitation of low-cost debt finance under Component 2. The training and capacity building activities under Component 3 would lead to better skills and capacities among local stakeholders to design, develop, implement, procure and deploy activities under Components 1 and 2, and Component 4 is designed to increase awareness among the general population and create demand for modern, low-carbon public bus transport capacity that will be created by activities under Components 1, 2 and 3. All of these will create a basis for replication, long-term sustainable market transformation, and MRV.   The project builds upon a government intent to modernize its public transport system and transition into a low-carbon public transport system, and a commitment to integrating electric mobility in its overall transport system over the next 10 years. Baseline of national policies, regulations and existing project activity – most notably, Bus Modernization Programme, technical specifications for import of electric buses, green credit lines under AFD’s SUNREF program that cover electric mobility investments, and incentives and grid codes for distributed solar power generation under MSDG and SSDG programs. However, the project also provides clear incrementality beyond baseline in both scale and content, by not only defining specific policies and regulations for all aspects of electric bus mobility, but also encouraging multi-modal transport integration among low-carbon transport options being deployed, actual investments into electric buses and solar powered charging station capacity, which are innovative and incremental to Mauritius.   Finally, the deployment of electric buses will contribute to climate change adaptation efforts. Electric bus models and their design/technical specifications under this project will be required to take into consideration the impacts of climate change such as flooding and coastal erosion that are commonly seen in Mauritius, thereby contributing to climate change adaptation of public transport. In addition, climate-resilient electric buses and their solar powered charging stations are likely to inspire climate resilience efforts along their pathways through increased green areas and effective designs that can mitigate the effects of possible floods. Moreover, modern e-buses with their zero tailpipe emissions contributed to lower heating and air pollution due to public transport, thereby reducing urban heat island effects in Mauritius, thus contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. In addition, climate resilient designs and technical specifications of electric buses deployed under this project will ensure access to climate resilient public transport to passengers in Mauritius.