Power to the People

Energy in the Developing World

Sept. 2 2010 THE ECONOMIST 

Technology and development: A growing number of initiatives are promoting bottom-up ways to deliver energy to the world’s poor .

Around 1.5 billion people, or more than a fifth of the world’s population, have no access to electricity, and a billion more have only an unreliable and intermittent supply. Of the people without electricity, 85% live in rural areas or on the fringes of cities. Extending energy grids into these areas is expensive: the United Nations estimates that an average of $35 billion-40 billion a year needs to be invested until 2030 so everyone on the planet can cook, heat and light their premises, and have energy for productive uses such as schooling. On current trends, however, the number of “energy poor” people will barely budge, and 16% of the world’s population will still have no electricity by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency....The developing world has an opportunity to leapfrog the centralised model, just as it leapfrogged fixed-line telecoms and went straight to mobile phones.

USAID MicroLinks Note from the Field

Honduras: Blending Finance, Technology, and Training to Encourage Responsible Growth

La Mosquitia, one of the last remaining tropical forest areas left in Central America, is the most impoverished region in Honduras. Local communities, including the indigenous Miskito (or Mosquitia) people, have struggled to keep alive their distinctive cultural heritage while dealing with the threats of environmental and economic uncertainty.

Through a carbon-neutral biofuel initiative,  the MOPAWI (from Mosquitia Pawisa) seek to generate equitable social development through sustainable microenterprise  utilizing palm oil  that is used for a variety of purposes.   This approach will provide financial, social, and environmental returns in order to:

• Increase local employment while decreasing out-migration;
• Lower the cost of production and with lower agricultural labor;
• Reduce waste and increase product yield; and,
• Decrease emissions and deforestation.

“The beauty of this enterprise,” says David Hircock, Senior Advisor for Estée Lauder, “is the multidimensional, entrepreneurial approach. Many elements of this approach can bring much-needed cash into the economy and also negate the need for cash. For example, the indigenous community may not need to purchase diesel. Additionally, the enterprise incorporates important elements affecting local security issues, such as food, water, land and economics. Perhaps most importantly, this enterprise could show that the Mosquitia people are integral to the sustainable development of the area and local economy of Puerto Lempira, whereas at the moment they are so often marginalized. Now they can have a much-needed voice.”

Microfinance and Climate Change: Can MFIs Promote Environmental Sustainability The Summary was authored by our own Betsy Teutsch, GreenMicrofinance, Director of Communication.  Great work, Betsy!

This report summarizes key themes and “lessons learned” from the “Microfinance and Climate Change: Can MFIs Promote Environmental Sustainability?” Speaker’s Corner, held November 18-20, 2008.  Nearly 200 participants from over 40 countries participated in this discussion hosted by GreenMicrofinance, allowing participants to connect and learn about each other's activities.

Energy-Efficient Cookstove

Solar Pumps operate anywhere there is Sun ray. It will not run when there is rain but there is no need of pumping water when it rains. 

OFF GRID refers to a power system that generates electricity such as power from a Solar PV array. The electricity produced is stored in Batteries for later use and the energy system isn't connected to the utility Power Grid. In the Developing World, where there is abundant sunlight and a large rural population without the proper infrastructure to develop an electrical grid, PV is very attractive option because of its modular features, its ability to generate electricity at the actual point of use, its low maintenance requirements and its non-polluting technologies. PV is also important to rural health clinics in developing countries. These clinics require electricity for lighting, vaccine refrigeration and water pumping and purification. PV has proven to be a reliable system for these isolated clinics. Even If you live in urban areas where grid is serving only a part of your requirement or facing power disruption and power outage then it is a good option to install OFF GRID solar power system to fulfill your power requirement when needed.

Imaj Enterprise

San Fransisco Environmental Justice Program

Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or education level, in environmental decision-making. Working closely with residents and businesses to make sure that the basic necessities of life-water, air, food, and shelter-are of the highest quality, the city's Environmental Justice (EJ) program has committed itself to providing fundamental rights to a safe and healthy environment in every San Francisco community. The program collaborates with other city agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community groups to promote the issues of air quality, food availability, renewable energy systems, sustainable land use, and the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Solar Public Housing in San Francisco

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced plans to install over 365 kw of solar panels on two San Francisco Housing Authority properties.  The solar panels will provide hundreds of thousands of kilowatts of clean, renewable electricity to public housing residents.   "With initiatives like GoSolarSF, San Francisco is lighting the way with solar power," said Mayor Newsom.  "Solar power will reduce greenhouse gases, grow our green economy, and lead the state towards a future of clean, renewable energy."

Check out the SF Interactive Solar Map

Why Women's Rights Are the Cause of our Time
New York Times Magazine
August 23, 2009

WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.

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Reflection on the NY Times Article....

WHY IS MICROFINANCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT important to women today?  How can micro-finance be used for Energy Meeting Women's Needs?   

(Please see Sarah Ban's blog post on June 18!)

Portfolios of the Poor How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day

By Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutheford, & Orlanda Ruthven
Princeton University Press

Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.

During the Opening Plenary at the Microcredit Summit in Colombia, Ingrid Munro, Founder and Managing Trustee of Jamii Bora in Kenya, shared that her institution, founded together with 50 beggars, is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary.   Their mission is to assist their members to get out of poverty and build a better life for themselves and their families. By being a member of Jamii Bora, you get access to a ladder -which you can use to climb out of poverty. While Jamii Bora provides the ladder, the borrowers do the climbing themselves.  She went on to share the inspiring stories of many of Jamii Bora's clients, who having started as beggars now own multiple businesses, are employers, and are helping others climb out of poverty.

One of Jamii Bora's key rules is that they love every member.   It doesn't matter where you come from; what matters is where you are going. They do not accept excuses; the way to hell is paved with excuses.   Jamii Bora doesn't only seek to lift people barely above the poverty line; it seeks to inspire its members with the confidence they need to reach to the sky and beyond.                                                                        

Posted Mon, 06/08/2009 by Lisa Laegreid microLINKS

Elizabeth Israel interviewed Ingrid in Bali in 2008. Dan Lundmark captured on film.  See blog entry My Chat with Ingrid Munro. Since then Elizabeth's and Thomas' new grandchild, Pooja, was adopted by their son and his wife (and 2 children) in Vermont; two years ago she was six years old, homeless, found wandering on the streets of Delhi.

In Celebration of Earth Day

GreenMicrofinance Announces the Launch of an Online University Forum Uniting Students and Practitioners to Address Climate Change by Merging Microfinance With Environmental Sustainability

GreenMicrofinance has set Earth Day at 5:00 PM EDT, for the launch of our online climate change and microfinance university network, the GMf University Forum^TM.

The GMf University Forum is a venue that mobilizes students, practitioners and activists who share the passion of environmentally conscious microfinance worldwide.  The Forum's prime objective is to facilitate the exchange of ideas on international development, focusing on such topics as sustainable microfinance in relation to clean energy, climate change and social investing.  The Forum can be accessed through GMf's home page at www.greenmicrofinance.org.

The GMf University Forum, its own social network with a structure similar to Facebook, provides extensive opportunities to maximize the flow of ideas.  Members will be able to post and partake in discussion topics; create connections from all participating universities such as Princeton, Lehigh, the University of Pennsylvania, Kathmandu University, and TISS, Mumbai, India; stay abreast of upcoming events, including conferences, seminars and talks featuring GMf leaders; upload their own documents and links to share; and post blog entries.  These tools will support the development of an online community of like-minded individuals creating momentum to achieve GMf's overall mission of knowledge building and creating sustainable solutions in the field of microfinance through social and academic networking.

The Forum aims to attract university students engaged in many disciplines which intersect microfinance and environmental sustainability, including Environmental Studies, International Finance, Area Studies, Public Health, Engineering and Technology, Climate Change Policy Studies, Biology and more. To participate, students can simply register through an existing university association link or through a specific discussion of interest. 

Namaste!   My four children have all graduated from Woodstock School located in the Himalyan mountains in northern India during the time we lived in rural Nepal.  Over a span of 7 years various family members trekked and enjoyed these majestic mountains.

It was with great interest I watched "On Thin Ice", this one-hour PBS special on NOW.  It is an alarming  report on glaciers.  

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/516/index.html

Seventy-five percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glaciers, but scientists predict climate change will cause some of the world's largest glaciers to completely melt by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives?

Environmentalist Conrad Anker, one of the world's leading high altitude climbers, warns, "We can't take climate change and put it on the back burner. If we don't address climate change, we won't be around as humans."