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Africa: Investors Should Support Lighting Africa Campaign
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
EDITORIAL
6 May 2008
Posted to the web 6 May 2008
An international conference that brings together representatives of the global lighting industry opened yesterday in Accra, Ghana. It could not have come at a critical time.
The surge in fuel prices means that Africa may lag behind and as a result the search for off-grid lighting must be accelerated.
Rising energy prices do underscore this urgency and this is the time to bring together stakeholders to understand the consumer behaviours, attitudes, and preferences even as they search for clean energy alternatives.
The aim of the conference is to bring interested investors to reach out to millions of poor households that are not connected to the power grid. The overall aim is to boost the quantity and reliability of our power supply and enable the continent to leap forward.
In a word, off-grid, as, advocated by the "Lighting Africa" campaign is an effort that should be supported as it will bring more that 250 million people who are currently outside the grid power infrastructure.
Launched in September last year by the World Bank and its private-sector unit, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the campaign will see firms interested in reaching out to these populations get help to establish themselves and will free millions of people from dependence on expensive and hazardous fuels.
That Kenya features prominently in this conference is a wake up call to local entrepreneurs to seize this opportunity and become part of this campaign.
At the moment only 10 per cent of Kenyans have access to electricity - compared to 26 for the entire continent.
Those outside the grid continue to rely on fossil-fuels which the World Bank describes as "costly, inefficient, poor-quality, and polluting."
This again is no longer sustainable as the costs are high.
That is why there is an ongoing global call to use more of solar lanterns, compact fluorescent lamps and swiftly discard the traditional bulbs.
If many of the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved no nation should be left out of Lighting Africa campaign.
For Kenya, we should also sort out the crumbling infrastructure which is at the moment being targeted by vandals and update the technology in order to minimize the transmission loses brought about by the aging distribution and transmission system, which stands at 18 per cent from the global levels of 15 per cent.
With the escalating cost of electricity investors will continue to be handicapped and repelled.
Africa is at the moment producing only four per cent of the world's electricity although it is home to more than 10 per cent of the global population.
In the Accra summit, some winning proposals on how to light Africa will be unveiled. It is from here that the continent will move forward.
There will be some more market research carried out in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zambia by the IFC and the outcome will determine the way we look at clean energy.
But this is not only about Africa.
Global statistics show that there are 1.7 billion people without electricity but the problem is most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where over 500 million people presently lack modern energy. In some parts , rural electricity access rates are as low as 2 per cent which is rather shocking and which has halt development projects.
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With the escalating cost of fuels, lighting is getting expensive and that is why we should seek new ways to light Africa. The time is now.
Expenditures on fuel based lighting is now estimated at US$38 billion annually and this has created a huge potential to engage the international lighting industry.
There is a whole new world for the investors.
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