The purpose of this Sustainable Energy Development degree project is to describe a project which I participated in from 2003 to 2008 as a District Program Officer of an NGO in rural Pakistan. This project involved organizing a rural village into an energy cooperative to address energy poverty and enable greater social, environmental and economic development. My objectives in doing so are: 1. To reflect on my professional experience with this project to identify the critical factors that both enabled and constrained project development and implementation; 2. To identify the major lessons learned from my project experience about the social, economic, institutional, cultural and financial issues affecting project development and implementation; and, 3. On the basis of my literature review on energy poverty and sustainable development, identify where the lessons learned from my project experience could contribute to the larger body of practice knowledge related to sustainable energy development for rural areas in developing economies.