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“1.6 billion people in the world still don't have access to electricity or modern forms of energy - that's a quarter of humanity….”
- Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Lighting up lives
As you read this these words, imagine life without electricity or batteries. For many, that is daily life.
Energy poverty holds back the poor. It limits their working hours and their social activities to daylight hours. It damages their health and welfare: how can you store food and medicines without refrigeration? How can you read or study without light in the evening?
Without energy, it is impossible to realize the Millennium Development Goals for all peoples in all countries. The Goals encompass the world’s main development challenges, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The pressing question is how to empower poor communities to produce energy that is both green and clean? The Energy for the Poor project aims to begin answering this question.
What will the project achieve?
A global study will determine the energy needs of the poor, paving the way for effective solutions and advocacy to support them. Solutions are already emerging in some developing countries where enterprising individuals are finding ‘low-tech’ ways to generate energy. Examples are hand-cranked rather than battery-operated radios in remote communities, and solar lanterns and torches.
The project’s strategic partner is The Energy Resources Institute (TERI), of New Delhi, which has mounted to program called ‘Lighting a billion lives’ to provide inexpensive solar-based lighting for people’s homes after sunset as well as solar-powered torches.
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