Why energy is fundamental to improving the lives of poor people

Mr John Ngujuna and his family live on a small farm near Nakuru in Kenya. His wife, children and grandparents spend hours each day gathering fuelwood. They buy over four litres of kerosene a week, when they can afford it, for the hurricane lamps that provide dim light in their house, barely enough to eat by, let alone to read. They spend a lot of their spare cash on dry cell batteries for their radio and for torches, and they do not have the machines or electric appliances which could allow them to process, and thus earn more from their crops.

For the Ngujuna family, the prospect of better energy services, like the small solar lantern they recently bought, make a huge difference. An improved stove for cooking would reduce the arduous work of fuel collection and would mean the women and children would not be breathing thick smoke while the cooking was going on.

Small amounts of energy would mean that water pumping and income generating services, such as welding and milling, would be possible. Small solar systems in the village would also mean that the clinic could operate at night, that urgent operations could be carried out and that vaccine could be stored safely. Very small solar lighting systems, available now, would mean that children could study in the evening and that the school could run literacy classes for adults.

Solutions such as improved stoves or solar lanterns are now reaching the Ngujuna family, but a lot still needs to be done if these products are to reach the millions of people who could benefit from them, and inevitably this will mean using existing commercial channels. And whatever technical solutions are devised for energy needs, they need to be accessible, affordable and appropriate.