IDEAS ON HOW ENERGY ACCESS CAN IMPACT ON THE LIVES AND PROSPECTS OF CHILDREN.

Access to clean and affordable energy is fundamental in addressing the inequality in children’s development; that all children have the same chances of a health, education and wellbeing wherever they are born. Clean and affordable energy is essential in order to achieve the MDGs. But the source of energy is arguably as important as access. In fact, increasingly the source of energy will determine how successfully both access to energy and the MDGs are met.

In many low-income countries, communities still rely on solid fuels (most notably firewood), which can have significant consequences for lives and livelihoods, and children are one of the most vulnerable to these effects. For instance, children (particularly girls) are often tasked with collecting firewood, which can be time-consuming, hard work and can impede their education and free time. Children are also most vulnerable to indoor air pollution: smoke in the home claims the lives of nearly 800,000 children each year (Human Development Report 2007/8).

Connecting these poorer often rural communities to a national grid powered by oil, or replacing firewood for kerosene and diesel, is increasingly becoming an insufficient solution. This is not because of concerns that low income countries will start contributing to global carbon emissions, but because global markets are increasingly including carbon pricing, and oil prices are set to continue rising over the years to come (the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted by 30% over the next three years). This makes communities already economically struggling highly vulnerable, especially those that import oil. A 2007 IEA study found 13 African countries paid more for oil imports from 2004 to 2007 than they received in aid and debt relief over the same period. Locking a developing country into carbon intensive infrastructure and investment will put the country at a disadvantage in the long term.

Charcoal and firewood, if not taken from sustainably managed forests, can cause further land degradation and therefore further indirect health and economic impact on the local communities. Supporting low income communities to develop more renewable energy resources will therefore reduce child deaths and health issues, increase their ability to access education (as described below), and ensure that they are growing up with the skills and infrastructure for jobs and livelihoods in a more resilient future. Engaging children in low carbon development is essential in achieving long term positive change.

So we urgently need to meet the needs of access to energy in the poorest communities with clean energy for homes, schools, solar and wind water pumps and clean and efficient household solutions for cooking and heating. This would help ensure that future jobs, markets, community participation and government revenues made by green energy are distributed to sectors that contribute to the reduction of poverty and inequality such as health and education.

Outline of the current situation and issues for children
In many countries access to energy, for light, heating and cooking is a daily struggle and takes up a huge proportion of their working day. A lack of access to clean household energy in developing countries means that more than a third of humanity – 2.4 billion people – cook and heat their homes by burning wood, dung and crop waste. This is a local supply of energy but one that impacts on health, gender equality, economic opportunities, and the environment and is an inefficient source of energy. On top of this there is a lack of access to mechanical power, electric lighting or telecommunications. Energy poverty is no small issue – currently 1.4 billion globally do not have access to electricity (IEA).

Health issues
There are a number of health impacts associated with smoke; respiratory illness, eye disease, lung cancer and low birth weight. Newborns and infants are often carried on their mothers’ backs while they are cooking, or kept close to the warm hearth. As a result, they spend many hours breathing polluted air during their first year of life – just when their developing airways and immune systems are most vulnerable.

Electrification is often associated with wider advances in health status. For example, in Bangladesh, rural electrification is estimated to increase income by 11 per cent, and to avert 25 child deaths for every 1000 households connected. (Human Development Report 2007/8)

Gender
A lack of access to household energy interferes with a child’s access to education, especially for girls, who traditionally need to fetch firewood or other fuels for cooking and heating. This perpetuates gender inequality into adulthood where women are less able to find time for employment or further education. Research in rural Tanzania found that women in some areas walk 5-10 km a day collecting and carrying firewood with loads of between 20 and 38kg. And in rural India, the amount of time spent collecting firewood is over three hours a day on average.

Economic
Many of the poorest households spend a large proportion of their income on fuel. In Nepal this can be between 10 and 15% of the total household expenditure in the poorest quintile (Heltberg, 2003). The lack of access to energy services can also restrict employment and income generating opportunities, for example, not having access to the internet or light in the evening impact on women and children. In addition, the combustion of these on open fires or basic stoves is extremely inefficient in terms of energy yield. Methane and black carbon are among the powerful climate change pollutants emitted by traditional stoves through inefficient combustion. Biomass is burned with low efficiencies of only 10 to 15%.

Environmental
Unsustainably sourced firewood and charcoal contribute to a cycle of destruction in the local ecosystems which further impact on poverty. Deforestation can expose a community to greater flood risks which further impacts on livelihoods and access to education.

Residents lift a solar panel onto the roof of the Gbandiwlo Health Centre in the village of Gbandiwlo, in Kailahun District. The solar panel will power a UNICEF-provided refrigerator. Sierra Leone, 2011.

Source: UNICEF/NYHQ2011-0746/Olivier Asselin
 

Despite this urgent need the move to cleaner, more economically sustainable energy is not happening fast enough. The IEA estimates the total number of people relying on biomass will increase to 2.8 billion by 2030. Although many organisations such as UNICEF have been supporting families and communities to install renewable energy resources, this needs to be scaled up at a much faster pace with supporting policy frameworks and investment.

Some examples of the outcomes for children in provision of clean energy

Solar energy increasing the number of children vaccinated
UNICEF has introduced solar power for the cold storage of vaccines in many countries such as Congo Brazzavile, Guinnea Bissau, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. These countries have a national power supply that is unreliable, or communities that are not connected to a national grid. This makes many communities highly vulnerable to price increases from imported diesel or kerosene. Importing this fuel is not only costly and unreliable, compared to solar energy, but it is often less practical to transport and manage. These countries have very good solar energy resource and so solar powered cold vaccination storage is a more sustainable energy solution. The installation and maintenance costs tend to be much less, and reduce costs of transporting kerosene.

Sierra Leone – solar cold chain
The cold chain system in immunization programmes ensure that vaccines from the manufacturer to the national, district and Peripheral Health Unit are delivered at the right temperature to be effective in preventing illness in children and mothers.
Vaccines are highly sensitive to temperature change which can affect their potency and efficacy. Therefore a cold chain is a key element of a successful immunization programme.

In Sierra Leone until 2005 the cold chain system was largely dependent on locally generated electricity and equipment that relied on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or a simple cold box with ice packs. These had proved to be expensive, cumbersome and unsustainable. The generators regularly broke down, because of a lack of a national electricity grid the fuelling funding regularly ran out, and sometimes LPG supplies were not available. This lack of a secure energy supply was having a direct impact on the ability to ensure every child was immunized; a key goal of UNICEF.

The introduction of solar panels as an alternative source of energy into the cold chain has, in Sierra Leone, proved to be one of the most cost effective programmatic innovations. It has helped to increase the coverage of immunization which in turn has helped improve children and mother’s health. The rate of a fully immunized child has increased from 49% in 2005 to 64% in 2007.

Solar lighting was also installed in the delivery rooms in several districts where previously there was no lighting except kerosene lamps or candles.

In each district where the solar refrigeration has been installed, technicians have been trained to install, repair and maintain the systems, and community leaders have been involved in ensuring security of the solar systems. This has contributed to local employment and a sense of community ownership over the solar energy supply.

A woman chops wood to sell for food on a hillside already affected by soil erosion, in the village of Chipumi. Malawi, 2002.

Source: UNICEF/NYHQ2002-0260/Ami Vitale

Mauritania – solar energy powers a mini revolution
As is the case in many African countries, large parts of rural Mauritania are not yet connected to the electricity grid. Even areas which are connected find that the power supply is unreliable. To accommodate this, health centres tend to use kerosene or other fossil fuels as back up to make sure their refrigerators keep running and their vaccines stay cold. Schools on the other hand have to rely on daylight, meaning that the classrooms can’t be used in the early morning or late afternoon. In rural homes, a common solution is kerosene lamps, which tend to give a flickering light which is difficult for children to study by. They can also be smoky and give off dangerous fumes. And of course some families simply cannot afford to buy the fuel.

Yet Mauritania has a huge and virtually untapped resource – nearly 365 days of sunshine a year. UNICEF is responding by introducing energy saving projects and solar power. By providing solar cooking stoves, for example, the community doesn’t just get a reliable and clean energy source, but the women are spared hours of time spent travelling in search of scarce wood. Lighting systems are also provided to allow girl students to study at night, both in areas that are not served by the electricity grid and for families who are too poor to afford fuel for their lamps. Meanwhile, solar panels and specially designed fridges ensure that vaccines and medicines can be stored safely in remote and non-electrified parts of the country.

Solar powered lighting has also allowed 125 schools to open for longer hours, to provide evening catch-up classes for the children and to offer more services to the public. The eye health of the children has improved by avoiding the faint light of the kerosene. The solar lamps were found to be low cost, operated for long periods and with minimal maintenance. They emit a powerful bright light suitable for classrooms and the home. This is part of a wider environment friendly school programme – more than 300 schools are developing nursery projects and tree plantations around their schools and villages. This project has been successful in encouraging more children to attend school (52% complete primary education compared with 43% in schools outside the programme) and is now starting to be applied nationally by UNICEF, the World Bank and the Mauritanian Government.

Conclusions: Next steps for ensuring all children have access to clean energy
2012 has been designated the year for Sustainable Energy for All. This is a coordinated initiative with 20 UN agencies to engage governments, the private sector and civil society to achieve three goals by 2030:

• Ensure universal access to modern energy services.
• Reduce global energy intensity by 40 per cent.
• Increase renewable energy use globally to 30 per cent.

According to the IEA, achieving this would require an annual investment of US$36 billion in the next 20 years. Innovative models for involving private investment, civil society and policy makers will be critical to meet this gap.

There is a clear economic, social and environmental case for a scaling-up in renewable energy access for some of the poorest communities in developing countries. If we want to meet the MDG’s with equity, we need to focus on the communities that have the least access to energy, and ensure that this energy access is truly sustainable – environmentally, socially and economically.