To help collect and distil the knowledge and experience from the last 15 months of engagement in East Africa, a concluding workshop was held in Kigali, Rwanda on 8 September 2015. The workshop brought together over 40 government representatives and other key stakeholders from across the region to share information on progress and remaining challenges, …
Off-grid electrification for development of small islands represents a number of unique challenges under the broad category of rural electrification. Small, off-grid island communities are particularly vulnerable to diesel price fluctuations and natural disasters, and thus, enhancing resilience through more sustainable and cheaper energy technologies should be a key priority. Financing the transition to these …
The Smart Villages Initiative continued its engagement in South Asia with a workshop held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 26 August 2015. The aim of the workshop was to learn from Bangladesh’s experience in providing energy to off-grid rural communities through home-based electricity systems, in particular solar home systems (SHS), and solar/solar-hybrid mini-grids. The workshop also …
WR8: Smart Villages in Bangladesh: Dhaka Workshop Report Read More »
There are two initial challenges in defining and measuring energy access: the absence of a universal definition of energy access and the difficulty of measuring any definition in an accurate manner. The multi-tier approach to measuring energy access proposed in the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Global Tracking Framework of 2013 introduces a five-tier measurement …
Capturing the multi-dimensionality of energy access Read More »
The Smart Villages Initiative has partnered with Aga Khan University Examination Board in Pakistan to launch a poster competition for children in the country.Participants were challenged to create a poster presentation on ‘When Ideas Flow, Villages Grow’. Access to modern energy is a big problem in villages all over the world. New technology makes it …
The East Africa Masterclass at Terrat focused on the village level experience of off-grid energy. We have invited local leaders and rural energy providers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania. We were keen for village headmen and headwomen to share their village experiences of energy provision and to tell us about the outcomes …
East Africa community leaders’ dialogue workshop Read More »
Amidst the stunning background of Terrat, a Masaai village in remote Northern Tanzania, members of the Smart Villages team spent the weekend of 22-23 August, 2015 engaged in an extremely productive dialogue event with representatives of village level energy initiatives from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda. The event was organised at a time when …
WR7: East African Community Leaders’ Dialogue Workshop Report Read More »
What questions does the typical fifteen-year-old city Malaysian ask? ‘Should I look for a job this school holiday?’ ‘What do I want to do in the future? Go into business or work for someone?’ ‘Should I pick the science or art stream for school next year?’ ‘Should I continue my tertiary education locally or overseas?’ …
Opportunities in Bario made me want to come home to Malaysia Read More »
This policy brief summarises the findings and recommendations arising from a 15 month programme of engagement in East Africa, commencing in June 2014, undertaken by the Smart Villages Initiative to identify the barriers to off-grid sustainable energy access for development in rural communities and to gather views on how those barriers can be overcome. It …
BR7: Lessons learned from the Smart Villages Engagement Programme in East Africa Read More »
More than one billion people in the world still do not have electricity. Over three billion cook on dirty, inefficient and harmful stoves and four million people die prematurely each year as a result. The UN’s Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative aims to achieve universal access to modern energy services by 2030. The Smart …
WR6: Southeast Asia Media Dialogue: Seoul Workshop Report Read More »
Kenyan farmers have been travelling to the Nakuru National Agricultural Show every year since 1920. These days you need to arrive early if you want to avoid the lengthy queues to purchase an entry ticket. You can tell when the show has officially opened from the throngs of people, rickety matatus and crowds of motorcycles …
The Smart Villages Initiative held its second major international workshop in Kuching, then capital city of Sarawak, Malaysia in January 2015. The workshop was the outcome of a collaboration between the Smart Villages Initiative, Akademi Sains Malaysia (the Malaysian Academy of Sciences) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). It brought together a diverse group of around …
BR6: Findings from the Kuching Smart Villages Workshop Read More »
Nakuru town was once dubbed ‘the cleanest town in East Africa’ but it lost that title many years ago. As you approach the town from Nairobi, you join a long procession of aged cargo trucks belching jet black exhaust fumes, reducing the air quality and staining roadside buildings. The town is, however, taking steps to …
Kenya Spots Geothermal Potential in The Menegai Crater Read More »
What are the characteristic features of a smart village? How might progression towards a smart village model improve lives in those communities? This brief provides a vision for improving the lives of rural villagers based on the smart villages concept (a rural analogue to smart cities). It also explores two prototypical case studies in Malaysia …
Whilst gender inequality is not something that can be solved purely by energy access, with the Smart Villages Initiative’s integrated vision for energy in rural villages, we can aim towards a coordinated and effective approach to gender in rural development more broadly and have a positive effect on the fight against gender inequality. This report …
TR3: Smart Villages – the gender and energy context Read More »
I once visited my local newspaper printing press. The machinery was immense. Two tonne rolls of paper were fed continuously into the ink rollers at fantastic speed. Conveyer belt contraptions whizzed partially folded newspapers around the factory with a frenetic industriousness. The whole apparatus would spit out 12 newspapers a second. Now imagine that it …
What do Perovskites mean for the Photovoltaic Industry? Read More »
As part of the series of regional engagements in South Asia, Smart Villages organised a workshop on off-grid rural energy provision in Bangladesh. The country has the fastest growing programme in the world with an estimated 70,000 solar home systems (SHS) installed per day. More than 3 million SHS have been installed in off-grid rural …
Opinion pieces from experts tackling the idea of energy as a catalyst for sustainable development – health, food security, education gender equality, governance, security and employment. Smart Villages: New Thinking for off-grid communities worldwide comprises 16 essays written by scientists and leading thinkers from around the world. 1.3 billion people worldwide still lack access to …
Book of collected essays from world experts released Read More »
[:en]Smart Villages presents 16 essays by leading scientists and thinkers, providing policy makers, donors and development agencies concerned with rural energy access with new insights on the barriers to energy access in villages in developing countries – technological, financial and political – and explores opportunities and efforts to overcome them. The book describes the personal …
This policy brief summarises key gender issues associated with rural energy access for development and establishing smart villages. It draws on a more detailed technical report (Welland, 2015) which identifies the reports and papers on which this review has been based.