Earlier in the week I went to the launch of the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook. The report’s produced by Practical Action and the launch was hosted by DFID in their offices in London. I sat next to people from The World Bank, talked to a guy from GIZ (German government), said hello to friends from IBM and chatted to some people from Oxford University.
You get a sense of the gathering.
What struck me was the high regard in which Practical Action’s held and the breath of our energy work. Plus our real efforts to try and make a difference in the world – even if it means moving outside of our comfort zone – in my case talking with posh people! Ill confess to being much more at home chatting with villagers or project workers.
The question some of our supporters may ask is ‘why bother’. The reality is that the UN have launched 2012 as the year of Sustainable Energy for All and at Rio +20 in June the Secretary General will make a call to see this happen. We want to see this succeed but we also want it to build on the lessons we take from our work (it seems silly to have to learn them all over again and a waste of vital development effort) – for example
• The importance of working together with people rather than imposing solutions or dumping kit
• Thinking of energy in a holistic way – for cooking, lighting, clinics, hospitals, powering businesses
• That much as energy is vital – without it sustained poverty reduction is a hundred times more difficult – it isn’t enough on its own you need to think about business, helping people skill up, education and so on
• The vital role small scale renewable solutions can play
• The importance of appropriate finance systems – and for the most vulnerable clever subsidies – so decent energy can be affordable to all
Creating energy access will be one of the great challenges of this century, as we face the reality of climate change there is the opportunity for transformative leadership and transformative energy supply.
But as much as Practical Action can ‘play with the big guys’ our heart and overwhelming focus remains in our projects and with the people in the communities where we work.
“I used to spend all day looking for firewood and cleaning pots and pans. Those days are now gone! Now it’s cheap and easy to cook rice, lentils and vegetables for my seven people family, When my neighbours saw that I had more time for other chores, they decided to install their own biogas plant too!” Mahesh, Nepal
Let’s hope the Secretary Generals call is heeded for Mahesh’s neighbours in Nepal and poor communities around the world.
February 12th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Hello, I am involved with the design and development of a Long Term Power Storage Device System that is portable and can be charged up in one hour. This feature allows for long term power for essential needs such as a fan, lights, refrigeration and medical equipment. The device can be charged through several ways: wall socket of 120V AC or 220V DC, Gas Generator, Solar Panel and Wind Turbine. It also has a UPS feature to maintain refrigeration of drugs during power outages. It is now being introduced in North America for a variety of emergency applications in indoor and outdoor usage. This product has obvious utilities for humanitarian purposes. My email is jfama@advpowerconcepts .com. I would be pleased to discuss this technology further.
February 13th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Hej Margaret!
I was browsing through this page as invited by the Hedon group to which I am a rather sleepy member, but occasionally I check them out. I have been working in energy, environment and development issues for more than thirty years, and I was glad to see two of issues in your blog.
“The importance of working together with people rather than imposing solutions or dumping kit”
and
“The importance of appropriate finance systems …”
All too often this area becomes the playground of technological fix fanatics, who have a solution but have not found the problem. Why they think the right place to put it to the test is with the poorest people on earth is still a riddle to me.
In my experience, the technology is never the problem. As much as we can understand from a “rich-country” perspective, the problems are as follows:
1. To make any energy systems sustainable (even economically)
2. To create the institutional structure for such energy systems – local empowerment, operation and maintenance. How?
3. Financing in a clever way.
But before any of this can take place, we should find out what are the problems and priorities of the people we aim to help. There is (at least) one field in which the poor people of the world are the uncontested experts, much more so than any of us foreigners: They are experts in their own situation. They know their own problems.
This must always be the starting point for any solutions or inputs.
I am working for a large consultancy firm. I rarely take part in policy discussions. But I see a reality out there which I feel seldom filters through either to our world (the lords of poverty), or to yours (a more idealistic world I think).
Keep up the good work, and never forget the people out there are the ones who know their problem.