Universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy is one of the proposed sustainable development goals (SDGs), but with 1.1 billion people having no access to electricity of any kind, and nearly 3 billion still relying on polluting and dangerous fuels such as kerosene and charcoal to cook and heat their homes, what will it take to make meaningful progress on achieving this goal? Six experts provide answers.
1. Incentivise development of better-priced alternatives
It’s scandalous that the poorest people spend up to 30% of their income on energy and up to $10 per Kwh for fuels. The main challenge for reaching them is weak purchasing power and lack of financing. In Mali the cheapest improved cookstove costs $5-$8 – too much when they compete with open stoves for free. In Kenya, a $10 solar lantern is just not accessible to small-scale traders, even though they are burning paraffin on a daily basis. Many of the quality products are too expensive without large-scale financing.
I’ve heard from a market leader that to reach the poorest without subsidies is just not viable. This is a real example of where targeted policies and interventions such as grant funding can legitimately be used to enable the market.
Dominic Brain, head of programme funding, Christian Aid, UK
2. Leverage mobile technology
A mobile phone-based payment system like M-Pesa is a transformative technology. It allows people who don’t even have a bank account, and can’t afford the upfront costs of a solar panel, to buy units of power, which they pay for on their phones. Everyone has a mobile phone and the phone networks do extend to most of these areas. On an island in the middle of Lake Victoria they are paying a lot for energy because every single bottle of kerosene has to be transferred a long way. Companies like ours can use M-Pesa to offer a better, cleaner service at a cost that saves them money. But there is a limit on the size of the grid that can be installed without regulation at the moment.
Sam Duby, chief technology officer, SteamaCo, Kenya
3. Make communities central to the solution
We are working in one of the most marginalised and remote parts of the world, 189 villages spread over 28,000 kilometres. When you operate in a context like this it’s about innovation and developing projects incrementally rather than going in with a blueprint. We work closely with the Pakistani government and donors because microfinance institutions won’t go into remote areas, where the population is thinly spread and the cost of delivery is high. But it isn’t government taking the lead. It is community organisations who identify sites, work out power demand and find the right people to manage and operate a scheme. It’s a good demonstration of what you can do when you trust communities. Even in uneducated communities there’s a lot wisdom. Education and wisdom are two things that should not be confused. One needs to respect that and build upon it.
Masood Ul Mulk, chief executive, Sarhad Rural Support Programme, Pakistan
4. Connect access to energy to climate change
In 2000 they didn’t even mention energy when they were adopting the millennium development goals. Yet hospitals cannot run without access to energy, you can’t have clean water, you can’t process food, and you can’t solve climate change without an energy revolution. So we now have that narrative.
To achieve sustainable energy goal number seven in the way the post-2015 development agenda suggests will require $800bn in investment a year: $350bn on energy efficiency, $350bn on renewable energy, and only $50bn on energy access. The message we will take to Cop 21 [UN climate talks in December] is that we need to make energy access to the poor part of the climate change solution. We will save forests, but also many lives, with clean cooking solutions.
Kandeh Yumkella, UN undersecretary general and special representative for the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, US
5. Concentrate on grassroots access
As a founder-member of the civil society coalition Access (pdf) the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is emphasising the need for good measurement and indicators of “energy access” so it leads to poverty reduction. Governments tend to focus on grid connections in urban areas, where the powerful live, not rural areas where the political cost of inaction is low. For international donors SDG7 can help steer finance to small-scale decentralised energy, where there is a large gap.
One study found that 65% of all energy aid goes to countries with electrification rates above 75%; only 15% to those with less than 50% electrification. For NGOs, having energy access in the SDGs provides an essential advocacy tool to hold governments to account and to press for change.
Camilla Toulmin, director, the International Institute for Environment and Development, UK
6. Advocate for better regulation and more collaboration
Businesses are playing a critical role in getting clean energy to the poorest and most remote communities. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular are increasingly making clean energy products affordable, accessible and aspirational. It’s not enough to tell someone to buy a clean cookstove because it’s good for their health – it has to be desirable.
But for sustainable energy SMEs to achieve sufficient scale, they need support. This means governments providing the regulatory support, eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels and transferring them to clean energy. Governments also have a role to play in leveraging large-scale private finance to support sustainable energy, including investment finance. And much more collaboration is needed between both the public and private sectors.
Sarah Butler-Sloss, founder director, the Ashden sustainable energy awards, UK
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