"Energy for the Poor" is a project to launch a unique global study on resolving energy poverty. 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?
Yet today 1.6 billion people have no access to modern forms of energy whatsoever. This holds back progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The Goals encompass the world’s main development challenges, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and ensuring environmental sustainability.
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A global study together with the Energy Resources Institute, India (TERI) will determine the energy needs of the poor, paving the way for effective solutions and advocacy to support their introduction. Solutions are already emerging in some developing countries where enterprising individuals are finding ‘low-tech’ ways to generate energy, such as hand-cranked rather than battery-operated radios. However, the gravity of the energy poverty situation is yet to be comprehensively tackled.