1.3 people in the world still lack access to electricity, and at least 3 billion people are still cooking on dangerous and inefficient cookstoves that create dangerous conditions inside homes. We’re trying to understand how the lives of people in rural villages in developing countries can be improved… In this video, Smart Villages asked experts …
In this village, you’ll learn about Terrat, a village in northern Tanzania. In an effort to help Maasai learn about their land rights, Martin Saning’o Kariongi sought to create a radio station. But to do this, he knew he had to find a sustainable and reliable source of energy to power it. As the work …
There is a kerosene lamp known in the Luganda language as tadooba. It burns like a candle and it gives off thick dark smoke that slowly causes a black coating on the roof of the house, the walls, the furniture and other household items. It is the commonest type of lamp used in poor homesteads …
On average, 60% of the population across the 15 countries that comprise the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) is based in rural areas. Rural electrification rates in the region remain extremely low and estimates suggest that, for the region as a whole, only 19% of the rural population has access to electricity. Traditional …
[:en]Key Points: Off-grid technology can catalyse sustainable development for even the 1.1 billion without electricity in the remotest “last mile” communities Bottom-up approach key to achieving SDG7 Energy Access for All Goal Hub and spoke models combining hybrid mini-grids and solar home systems can provide starting point Governments need to create integrated off-grid and grid …
Worldwide, 1.3 billion people remain without access to electricity and 2.7 billion are still cooking on harmful and inefficient stoves1. Many live in remote rural village communities, and until they have access to energy services, little progress can be made to develop and improve their lives2. As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated, “energy …
[:en]On the stage of the Lighting a Billion Lives Convention in Delhi India, Smart Villages has announced Naturetech Infra as the winner of the Smart Villages Off-grid Energy Impact Competition for India. Applications from off-grid energy entrepreneurs across the nation were assessed on impact, level of project development, sustainability, innovation and replicability. Naturetech Infra was …
[:en]Co-authored by a science journalist and an energy researcher, WGSI’s OpenAccess Energy Brief is an engaging overview of energy access issues that identifies challenges, knowledge gaps and opportunities. This version incorporates feedback collected by our advisory group who met in October 2015 to evaluate version 1 of the Brief and Summit goals. This version of …
Access to safe and sustainable energy is of vital importance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), says Marcel Alers, global head of energy at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). “Energy provision is an essential element of sustainable development,” Alers tells SciDev.Net, referring to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which encompasses the 17 goals …
Why energy is a priority in sustainable development 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 »
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 …
Smart Villages and Practical Action Consulting off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes In the latest of a series of workshops across the SE Asia region, the Smart Villages Initiative and Practical Action Consulting brought together a diverse cross-section of participants in the Nepali off-grid energy sector. The Smart Villages …
Off-grid village energy workshop in Nepal highlights key role of mini-hydro schemes Read More »
Approximately 360 million people in India lack adequate access to grid-electricity and another 20 million households receive less than four hours of electricity per day. To help close this gap, the Government of India has set a target of generating 100 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022. But while grid connectivity is expected to improve …
The Smart Villages Energy Innovation Challenge, launching today, challenges young East African entrepreneurs to form teams and come up with imaginative ways of distributing or implementing novel or existing energy technologies for off-grid villages. Each team should include one engineer or scientist. The teams with the best entries will win a spot in the Cambridge …
Innovation competitions for new technologies and business models are one tool used by policy makers in a range of contexts and countries to help businesses in new fields overcome practical barriers blocking progress between successful pilots and commercialisation. This brief note discusses competitions relevant to African off-grid energy and how they could be designed and …
BR2: The role of innovation competitions for off-grid energy in Africa Read More »
This infographic summarises the requirement for and the challenges to energy access across the ASEAN region (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore , Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam). The ASEAN region is now the engine of the global economy. Its spectacular growth over the past two decades has lifted hundreds of millions of people out …
The workshop held in Arusha, Tanzania from 2 to 5 June, 2014, was the first in the series of six major international workshops planned to be held in Africa, Asia and Latin America over the period 2014 to 2017 as a core component of the Smart Villages Initiative (www.e4sv.org). The organising partners for the Arusha workshop were the Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust …
WR2: Smart Villages in East Africa – Arusha Workshop Report Read More »