Village Inventory

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals the world is on a path to an “unacceptable failure, both moral and practical”. None of the MDGs can be delivered without access to modern energy services for the approximately 1.5 billion people who today live without it. A lack of basic energy service impacts all aspects of these people’s lives, from healthcare to clean water, safe housing, education and the potential to earn a living. Rural communities account for 85% of energy poor.

 

Institutions, including the International Financial Institutions and also most governments focus on grid-expansion and densely populated urban areas. Key challenges include the lack of adapted financing mechanisms that can deliver on rural energification schemes; inadequate education and shortage of local skills for project initiation, implementation and system operation; the absence of easy local access to components for equipment maintenance and enhancement; the lack of understanding and political support necessary to replicate enduring local ownership models.