Solar energy a priority for the poor

By The NewsDay | Jul. 20, 2015 | 5 Min read

IT is every country’s desire to improve the livelihoods of its citizens through sustainable economic development.

With the current discourse of clean energy hogging the lime light, nations around the world are working feverishly to see how they can dump energy from fossil fuels and be part of the global clean energy initiative.

The reason being that, climate change which has already wrecked havoc in many countries around the world is threatening to cause more harm than ever before.

Solar energy will become handy in providing opportunities for climate-smart farming which contributes to low-carbon communities. As nations plan for smart-energy partnerships, it is every person’s desire that they take time to consider the poor, the vulnerable and low-income families to take advantage of solar power.

Solar power which may come as a blessing for Africa as it is in abundance and readily available can usher in a new revolution for eco-living styles.

The best ingredient in this regard is to start small, avoid mega and suffocating projects that will chock least developed countries like ours.

This means that the first point of call should be poor, rural communities and low-income earners as a pilot project.

For low-income earners this can be in the form of energy loans and grants to help them off-set costs associated with installing solar panels on community facilities, public houses and low-income family homes.

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That poor people should be at the fore front of any development planning is not a secret as we have seen the country’s leadership talking about empowering the poor in the guise of looting the country’s resources.

This time it should be real and the looters need to consider the rightly deserving people first. Poor communities that are largely made up of vulnerable women and child headed families have suffered for quite a long time without benefitting from state programmes.

The leadership has abused the name of the poor to empower themselves and their undeserving friends. In this regard, any energy loans and grants should first priorities the above mentioned down trodden and the wretched sectors of our communities.

We heard of renewable energy exhibitions and fairs, the most recent one was held in Bulawayo and I doubt if these people with cracked feet and poverty stricken faces were ever invited to witness programmes aimed at changing their livelihoods.

I also have many doubts if these people have ever heard of something called renewable energy, that they can use solar power for small scale irrigation or even in their nutritional gardens.

Obviously the exhibitors would want to sound technocratic and up market with discourses such as megawatts, eco-dynamics, socio-economic sustenance, carbon farming and capture hogging the lime-light.

But soon after these exhibitions, the information gained will be left to rot, die a natural death or wait for the following year’s exhibition.

We need climate change action leaders rather than destructive elements and looters masquerading as people friendly.

All the crucial environmental successes need crucial environmental fighters not proponents of fossil fuels. Our parliament of dummies can talk about climate change issues or they are not even aware of the monster that is already ravaging their constituencies.

They need to be educated so that they know what clean energy is, its benefits and improvements to the communities they claim to represent.

What is important is that those in authorities should not continue to bribe the poor with loads of lies and glib, and continue to get away with it every time.

The even distribution of solar products to which ever beneficiaries need a simple pilot study and needs analysis with the low-income learners, the poor and child-headed families.

The reason to target these groups of people, first and foremost, before everything else is that, solar products, especially the panels and batteries are way beyond the reach of many. They are expensive and particularly scaring.

For this reason, it is unimaginable to think that the low-income earning group, the poor and child-headed families will fit in any government programme. They don’t have the voice to articulate their issues and even when they speak, no one will hear or listen to them.

Our major undoing as a developing country is spending the course of our economic development planning initiatives trying to engage in major unsustainable projects without thinking local and small to achieve desired goals. The provision of solar products mainly to the poor and other low-income groups, who need them most, will contribute to economic development and environmental sustainability.

These would open up a wide range of opportunities for the corporate sector. The panacea to our economic woes lies in the investment in simple and sustainable rural technologies whilst retaining the core environment al and social values.

Solar products are not about lighting in our homes as they a wide range of eco-prenuership uses that need to be harnessed.

The majority of rural and urban Zimbabweans are poverty stricken and hopeless, as such; simple science and technologies for these people should be the government and non-governmental organisations’ major priorities. Therefore, this yawning planning gap should be quickly abridged.

As a nation of serious people, we need to avoid being too loud or complicated for nothing. We should not be known for deriving maximum joy in hearing ourselves speak monumental nothings, mostly to the gallery, without anything tangible coming out this disturbing noise.

We talk of Zimbabwe as an awakening giant, hearing the same tired and nauseating voices that have failed every one by continuing to recycle ideas. I also wonder if the agricultural and mechanisation equipment that were dumped to us by Brazil are going to find their way to the poor or they are going to benefit the same failures that have made our country a laughing-stock of the world.

All in all, it is in the interest of the marginalised and sustainable development to spare a thought for the poor and struggling members of our communities rather than to gain mileage using their name or course.

Finally, climate smart agriculture is the way to go as it improves the capturing of carbon into the soil.

 Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on: [email protected]