Access to reliable, affordable and clean energy is a cornerstone of sustainable development. Despite this 1.2 billion people continue to have no access to electricity and a further 3 billion are energy poor. Often cited reasons for the lack of progress include the technological and financial difficulties associated with bringing electricity to rural areas due …
Interview with Farzana Rahman Senior Vice-President (Investment), Renewable Energy, IDCOL Location: Bangladesh “The amount of solar home systems we have installed – 4 million – speaks for itself” Around 12% of Bangladeshis, or 18 million people, currently use solar home systems. Solar panels sit on top of rural homes with corrugated tin roofs, connected to …
How can energy access catalyse rural development around the world? 1.3 billion people in the world, mostly resource-poor and living in rural areas, do not have access to safe, sustainable forms of energy. 3 billion people have to burn biomass to cook their meals, which causes indoor smoke pollution. Because of this pollution, 4 million …
Smart Villages Photography Competition 2017 (CLOSED) Read More »
The Smart Villages Initiative (SVI) the Global Young Academy (GYA), the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), and the National Science Museum (NSM) held a workshop on off-grid energy for rural development in Bangkok, Thailand from 7 to 9 March 2017. The workshop covered how energy access in off grid villages can enable improvements …
Interview with Huw Jones Executive Director & Founder at The Virtual Doctors Location: Zambia “If you’re got education and health, that’s a foundation.” Huw Jones traces the earliest origins of The Virtual Doctors to a trail of blood he saw while travelling through rural Zambia to buy pumpkins for soup. It was the mid-1990s and he was …
Can telemedicine revolutionise rural healthcare in Africa? Read More »
As the world moves towards 2030, the deadline of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Initiative, it is important to review the achievements of the past few years and readjust our path to meet the goal. For this reason, Practical Action together with the Smart Villages Initiative held a one-day regional workshop on rural energy …
WR32: Energy planning from the bottom up: community-led approaches West Africa Read More »
As the world moves towards 2030, the deadline for achieving the targets of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Initiative, it is important to review the achievements of the past years and readjust our path to meet the goal. For this reason, Practical Action together with the Smart Villages Initiative held a one-day regional workshop …
BR24: Rural Energy Access Planning in Togo – Policy Brief Read More »
Interview with Rik Stamhuis Co-Founder and Managing Director, Jiro-Ve Location: Antananarivo, Madagascar “It is the business model, and not the product, which needs innovation in solar” How do you change people’s behaviour forever? Rik Stamhuis says you need to ensure that there is a solution which won’t force people to have to go back to their …
Micro-entrepreneurs and business model innovation in Madagascar Read More »
As the world moves towards 2030, the deadline of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Initiative, it is important to review the achievements of the past few years and readjust our path to meet the goal. For this reason, Practical Action together with the Smart Villages Initiative held a one-day regional workshop on rural energy access planning on 20 February 2017 at …
From the bottom up: Community-led approaches in national energy planning in West Africa Read More »
Healthy villages are smart villages – places where people can live healthy lives with longer lifespans, fewer childhood illnesses and deaths, and greater well-being. In this webinar, we will think about the intersections of health and energy. Indoor air pollution remains one of the most deadly elements for many people in the developing world. We …
Webinar: Healthy villages are smart villages: Health, energy, and development Read More »
Marc Zedler, Project Manager, Connected Solar Market Centers (CSMC), Solarkiosk Location: Berlin, Germany and across Africa “Focus on a core group of entrepreneurs who engage with the community” For Marc Zedler, there is a bigger picture at Solarkiosk, a German solar company operating in multiple African countries. Having a service which provides rural communities with …
The vast majority of the rural development literature focuses on relatively homogenous ethnolinguistic communities based in periurban and middle-rural areas. This literature has borne much fruit and there is now a general consensus among academics, practitioners and policy makers on the broad parameters of what is required to catalyse rural development in these areas, though …
TR10: Indigenous communities, ICT and rural development Read More »
Interview with Ron Bills CEO, Envirofit Location: Across the developing world “People want to be treated as customers, with dreams, desires, and aspirations, not as aid recipients” Ron Bills is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board for Envirofit, a global social enterprise that has revolutionized the way we think about energy access …
A breath of fresh air: How Envirofit is doing social good with a for-profit model Read More »
[:en] Healthy villages are smart villages – places where people can live healthy lives with longer lifespans, fewer childhood illnesses and deaths, and greater well-being. In this webinar, we will think about the intersections of health and energy. Indoor air pollution remains one of the most deadly elements for many people in the developing world. …
Video by Steve Martin Saning’o
Women are central to successful business models for off-grid energy in developing countries – whether they are founding micro enterprises, building small, medium, and large businesses, or are the consumers choosing the best energy sources for their household. In this webinar, you’ll hear from women working on the frontlines of energy entrepreneurship. They will reflect …
On 10 October 2016, Smart Villages was invited to speak to the European Parliament’s Development Committee on the topic of energy and development. Chair of the Development Committee, Linda McAvan of the UK, introduced Smart Villages to the Members of the Committee. Molly Hurley-Dépret presented to the DEVE Committee and called for an ambitious approach …
Smart Villages presents in European Parliament Development Committee, 10/10/2016 Read More »
In August, we held a successful webinar focusing on women and entrepreneurship in off-grid communities, with views from Solar Sister, Ajima Farms Ltd, Power4All, and Kopernik. (https://e4sv.org/events/women-energy-e…) In our current webinar, we will hear from off-grid companies, including Frontier Markets, PEG Ghana, among others, on how they have scaled up inclusiveness and integrated gender into …
When disaster strikes, a community’s ability to respond and recover is tested, whether it is affected by a flood, an earthquake, a drought, a tsunami, or a hurricane, and whether it is located in a rural, urban, or peri-urban area. In this webinar, we’ll bring together experts who have worked in Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, and …
November webinar: Going off the grid: Disaster, resilience, and off-grid energy Read More »