Poor peoples
energy outlook
2014
Praise for this book
The ENERGIA International Network greatly appreciates the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook series and the impact it has had on the SE4ALL development agenda. We welcome its efforts to bring the realities of women and men living in underserved communities to the fore. The PPEO series has added value to the ENERGIA Networks learning and exchange, and is an essential resource showcasing game-changing solutions that contribute to our Networks objective of womens economic empowerment through energy access.
Sheila Oparaocha, Executive-Secretary, Energia International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy
Universal access to clean, modern energy services for the people of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important challenges of our time. We warmly welcome the publication of this book which will help us to target our interventions better.
Ousmane Fall Sarr, Director of Research and Information Systems, Senegalese Rural Electrification Agency, Dakar, Senegal
It is great to see this progressive report move beyond seeing energy as an access or supply issue to a service-based definition focusing on end-uses of energy to achieve real impacts. This is reflected in the range of outcome-focused indicators described in the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook 2014, which measure how an energy service is performing, rather than simply the number of grid connections counted using traditional measures. It is also very encouraging to see a call for action, with a practical framework, on delivering energy services to meet the productive/enterprise and community-level needs of poor women and men bringing a more holistic and ambitious set of targets which encompass education, health, communications, and income generation.
Ben Garside, Researcher, Energy Team, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Acknowledgements
The PPEO 2014 represents a revised and updated set of chapters which can be found in their original form in PPEOS 2010, 2012, and 2013. The revisions and editions were authored and compiled by Aaron Leopold, Lucy Stevens and Mary Gallagher. The report has benefited from additional input from Astrid Walker Bourne, Mattia Vianello, Drew Corbyn, Ewan Bloomfield, Chad Monfreda, Mary Allen and Christine Comerford.
Poor peoples
energy outlook
2014
Key messages on energy for
poverty alleviation
About Practical Action
Practical Action is a development charity with a difference. We use technology to challenge poverty by building the capabilities of poor people, improving their access to technical options and knowledge. We work internationally from regional offices in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the UK. Our vision is of a sustainable world free of poverty and injustice in which technology is used for the benefit of all.
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www.practicalactionpublishing.org
Practical Action, 2014
ISBN 978 1 85339 856 8 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 78044 589 2 Library Ebook
ISBN 978 1 78044 856 5 Ebook
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Citation: Practical Action (2014) Poor peoples energy outlook 2014: Key messages on energy for poverty alleviation, Rugby, UK: Practical Action Publishing.
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Cover photo: Fulani man using his headscarf to clean solar panels. (Credit: Giacomo Pirozzi/Panos)
Back cover, left: A carpenter uses a power sander, Yanacancha, Peru. (Credit: Ana Casteeda/Practical Action)
Back cover, right: Pupils from Nyafaru school in Zimbabwe study by electric light, powered by micro-hydro. (Credit: Crispin Hughes/Practical Action)
Design, editing and production by Practical Action Publishing
Printed in the UK by Berforts Information Press
Contents
Foreword
The importance of achieving universal energy access has never been higher on the international agenda. Energy is fundamental to poverty reduction and a critical enabler of development. It supports people as they seek a whole range of development benefits: from cleaner, safer homes; lives of greater dignity and less drudgery; to better livelihoods and better quality health and education. Access to affordable, clean energy services can change the lives of women and girls and help to generate local income when linked to productive activities.
At the same time, despite progress, the challenge of achieving universal access to energy remains immense. This has been well recognized by the UN Secretary-Generals Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4ALL) and the UN Decade (20142024) of Sustainable Energy for All.
The contribution of the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook (PPEO) over the past four years has been to highlight this challenge and seek to refocus the global energy discourse onto the energy supplies and services that really matter to poor people. This edition of the PPEO provides a timely restatement of the urgent need for the world to take a more holistic approach. It reminds us of the progress we have made in getting these issues onto the international agenda, but also of the challenges that remain. Energy can enable or disable pathways to development.
In setting out a clear framework for action, PPEO 2014 calls for a shift from business as usual to an approach which will truly leave no-one behind and make access to energy services the development enabler.
For all these reasons, I warmly welcome the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook 2014.
Kandeh K. Yumkella
Special Representative of the Secretary-General
Sustainable Energy for All
CEO, Sustainable Energy for All initiative
Chair UN-Energy
Introduction
Lifting people from energy poverty is a critical component of ending the poverty trap that consigns hundreds of millions of poor people to lives of drudgery and subsistence work. Since the first edition of the
