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Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa pp 1–20Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Introduction

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Part of the book series: Energy, Climate and the Environment ((ECE))

Abstract

This chapter gives an introduction to energy access and energy poverty. The author clearly analyses how energy poverty affects other developmental sectors like industrialisation, agriculture, and transport. The author further elaborates how the challenge of energy access affects the achievement of most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including the goal to end hunger, to end poverty, and ensure quality education just to mention but a few.

This chapter brings out the reasons as to why it is very urgent and essential to address the challenge of energy poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Additionally, the author gives a brief overview of some of the regional organisations including the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See SADC Energy Monitor, 2016, Page 58.

  2. 2.

    EAC is a regional inter-governmental organisation of six countries including Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Uganda.

  3. 3.

    The Organs and Institutions of the Community are established under Article 9 of the EAC Treaty.

  4. 4.

    ECOWAS is a regional inter-governmental organisation of fifteen countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

  5. 5.

    SADC is a regional inter-governmental organisation of fifteen countries including Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

  6. 6.

    Article 5(1) (a) of the 1992 SADC Treaty.

  7. 7.

    SADCC was formed on April 1 1980, comprising of all the majority ruled states of Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

  8. 8.

    The Summit was held in Windhoek, Namibia, the SADC Treaty was signed by the Heads of State and Government, and this established SADC under Article 2.

  9. 9.

    Institutions are established under Article 9(1) of the Treaty of the Southern African Development Community.

  10. 10.

    For a full discussion on this see Easterly, W., 2009. How the millennium development goals are unfair to Africa. World Development, 37(1), pp. 26–35; See also Attaran, A., 2005. An immeasurable crisis? A criticism of the Millennium Development Goals and why they cannot be measured. PLoS Medicine, 2(10), p. 318.

  11. 11.

    See Horton, R., 2014. Offline: Why the sustainable development goals will fail. The Lancet, 383(9936), p. 2196.

  12. 12.

    Horton, R., 2014. Offline: Why the sustainable development goals will fail. The Lancet, 383(9936), p. 2196.

  13. 13.

    Sectors such as finance, agriculture, energy, and transport.

  14. 14.

    Societal actors such as local authorities, government agencies, private sector, and civil society.

  15. 15.

    For a full discussion on this, see Stafford-Smith, M., Griggs, D., Gaffney, O., Ullah, F., Reyers, B., Kanie, N., Stigson, B., Shrivastava, P., Leach, M. and O’Connell, D., 2017. Integration: The key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability Science, 12(6), pp. 911–919.

  16. 16.

    Goal 7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 2016.

  17. 17.

    Cecelski, E. and Policy, A.A.E., 2002. Enabling equitable access to rural electrification: Current thinking and major activities in energy, poverty and gender. World Development Report, 1, pp. 2–3.

  18. 18.

    See Nelson Mandela’s speech in London’s Trafalgar Square for the campaign to end poverty in the developing world, 2005. It can be accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4232603.stm

  19. 19.

    See Abu-Ghaida, D. and Klasen, S., 2004. The costs of missing the Millennium Development Goal on gender equity. World Development, 32(7), pp. 1075–1107; Ansell, N., 2017. Achieving gender parity in education: Achievements and limitations of Millennium Development Goal 3. Laboring and Learning, pp. 111–130.

  20. 20.

    World Bank: Overview, http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/overview#1, last visited on 21 November 2015.

  21. 21.

    UN-Energy: The energy challenge of achieving the millennium development goals, http://www.un-energy.org/publications/50-the-energy-challenge-for-achieving-the-millennium-development-goals, last visited on 11 November 2015.

  22. 22.

    For a full discussion on this see Chant, S.H., 2007. Gender, generation and poverty: Exploring the feminization of poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Edward Elgar Publishing.

  23. 23.

    For a full discussion on this see Sachs, J., 2005. The end of poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime. Penguin UK.

  24. 24.

    Rahman, A. and Bhatt, B.P., 2017. Scope and options of solar energy use in agriculture in eastern region of India. Journal of AgriSearch, 4(1).

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    Ibid.

  27. 27.

    Langarita, R., Chóliz, J.S., Sarasa, C., Duarte, R. and Jiménez, S., 2017. Electricity costs in irrigated agriculture: A case study for an irrigation scheme in Spain. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 68, pp. 1008–1019.

  28. 28.

    Lecina, S., Isidoro, D., Playán, E. and Aragüés, R., 2010. Irrigation modernization and water conservation in Spain: The case of Riegos del Alto Aragón. Agricultural Water Management, 97(10), pp. 1663–1675; Rodríguez-Díaz, J.A., Pérez-Urrestarazu, L., Camacho-Poyato, E. and Montesinos, P., 2011. The paradox of irrigation scheme modernization: More efficient water use linked to higher energy demand. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, 9(4), pp. 1000–1008.

  29. 29.

    See UN Sustainable Development Goals at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/, last visited on 12 January 2018.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    See UN Sustainable Development Goals at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/, last visited on 12 January 2018.

  32. 32.

    See International Energy Agency: World Outlook Special Report, 2017, Page 28.

  33. 33.

    See UN Sustainable Development Goals at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/, last visited on 12 January 2018.

  34. 34.

    See UN Sustainable Development Goals at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/, last visited on 12 January 2018.

  35. 35.

    See Warschauer, M. and Ames, M., 2010. Can one laptop per child save the world’s poor? Journal of International Affairs, 64(1), pp. 33–51.

  36. 36.

    Danielsen, K., 2012. Gender equality, women’s rights and access to energy services. A paper presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

  37. 37.

    See International Energy Agency: World Energy Outlook Special Report, 2017, Page 3. The report can be accessed at https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO2017SpecialReport_EnergyAccessOutlook.pdf, last visited on 1 March 2018.

  38. 38.

    For a full discussion on this see Danielsen, K., 2012. Gender equality, women’s rights and access to energy services. A paper presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

  39. 39.

    See target 8.3 of the SDGs, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sustainabledevelopmentgoals last accessed on 14 January 2018.

  40. 40.

    Gold amalgamation is one of the oldest forms of extracting gold: mercury is added to silver and gold to form an amalgam (paste) and it amalgamates all metals except iron and platinum. For a full discussion on this see Veiga, M.M., Angeloci-Santos, G. and Meech, J.A., 2014. Review of barriers to reduce mercury use in artisanal gold mining. The Extractive Industries and Society, 1(2), pp. 351–361.

  41. 41.

    See Assessment, U.G.M., 2013. Sources, emissions, releases and environmental transport (p. 42). Geneva, Switzerland: UNEP Chemicals Branch. Effects of mercury are well documented and for further discussions see also Pfeiffer, W.C., de Lacerda, L.D., Malm, O., Souza, C.M.M., da Silveira, E.G. and Bastos, W.R., 1989. Mercury concentrations in inland waters of gold-mining areas in Rondonia, Brazil. Science of the Total Environment, 87, pp. 233–240; van Straaten, P., 2000. Human exposure to mercury due to small-scale gold mining in northern Tanzania. Science of the Total Environment, 259(1), pp. 45–53; Spiegel, S.J. and Veiga, M.M., 2010. International guidelines on mercury management in small-scale gold mining. Journal of Cleaner Production, 18(4), pp. 375–385.

  42. 42.

    Veiga, M.M., Angeloci-Santos, G. and Meech, J.A., 2014. Review of barriers to reduce mercury use in artisanal gold mining. The Extractive Industries and Society, 1(2), pp. 351–361.

  43. 43.

    To have a general view of the living conditions of artisanal gold miners, take a look at some of the videos I shot from the field; this can be accessed on Victoria Nalule YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuWmudeSz_A&t=32s, last visited on 13 January 2018.

  44. 44.

    See Veiga, M.M., Angeloci-Santos, G. and Meech, J.A., 2014. Review of barriers to reduce mercury use in artisanal gold mining. The Extractive Industries and Society, 1(2), pp. 351–361. Other scholars have also discussed the issue of formalisation of AGM; see Hinton, J.J., Veiga, M.M. and Veiga, A.T.C., 2003. Clean artisanal gold mining: A utopian approach? Journal of Cleaner Production, 11(2), pp. 99–115; McDaniels, J., Chouinard, R. and Veiga, M.M., 2010. Appraising the Global Mercury Project: An adaptive management approach to combating mercury pollution in small-scale gold mining. International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 41(3–4), pp. 242–258.

  45. 45.

    To get a full idea of the challenges artisanal salt miners face in Uganda, watch a field work video I recorded. This can be accessed at Victoria Nalule YouTube Channel, Salt Mining in Uganda, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKFP6DswMrM&t=532s, last visited on 14 January 2018. In this video, there are interviews conducted with the artisanal salt miners themselves. The video also highlights the working conditions of the miners.

  46. 46.

    See Kirabira, J.B., Kasedde, H. and Semukuuttu, D., 2013. Towards the improvement of salt extraction at Lake Katwe. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 2(1), pp. 76–81. See also, Sampathkumar, K., Arjunan, T.V., Pitchandi, P. and Senthilkumar, P., 2010. Active solar distillation—A detailed review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 14(6), pp. 1503–1526.

  47. 47.

    See UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sustainabledevelopmentgoals, last accessed on 14 January 2018.

  48. 48.

    See Aljazeera, Environment, “The World is running out of sand”, http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/06/world-running-sand-scientists-170625060441463.html, last visited on 14 January 2018; The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand, last visited on 14 January 2018.

  49. 49.

    See the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/27/sand-mining-global-environmental-crisis-never-heard, last visited on 14 January 2018.

  50. 50.

    For a full discussion on this and also to watch interviews from the local people where sand is extracted from in Uganda, see Victoria Nalule YouTube Channel, “Preserve Sand in Africa”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfEU7w7GoZ0&t=143s, last visited on 14 January 2018. In this video, I also highlight and show the kind of infrastructure around these sand resource rich areas in Uganda.

  51. 51.

    One important issue to note here is that the environmental impacts left behind by some of these Chinese companies are massive. To get an idea of some of these impacts, see Victoria Nalule YouTube Channel, “Mining Closures in Africa”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5t0_n7Gr5w&t=40s, last visited on 14 January 2018. This video also benefited from the field work I carried out in Uganda. See also scholarly articles on the subject: Sreebha, S. and Padmalal, D., 2011. Environmental impact assessment of sand mining from the small catchment rivers in the southwestern coast of India: A case study. Environmental Management, 47(1), pp. 130–140; de Leeuw, J., Shankman, D., Wu, G., de Boer, W.F., Burnham, J., He, Q., Yesou, H. and Xiao, J., 2010. Strategic assessment of the magnitude and impacts of sand mining in Poyang Lake, China. Regional Environmental Change, 10(2), pp. 95–102.

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    Victoria R. Nalule

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Nalule, V.R. (2019). Introduction. In: Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95402-8_1

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