How can rural youth better benefit from renewable energy? A perspective from Sustainable Development Goals

Recent decades witnessed the rapid expansion and development of renewable energy at both national and global levels. In particular, ensuring inclusive access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy has been accepted by the United Nations (UN) as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a strong emphasis on renewable energy (SDG Target 7.2 and SDG Indicator 7.2.1). The allocation of renewable energy has a high concentration in urban areas. As shown by the evidence from China, Costa Rica, and Uganda, the majority of efforts in the development and use of renewable energy so far are in urban areas especially in large cities [1]. This is largely due to the availability of adequate infrastructure, environmental-friendly regulatory frameworks, and the revenue bases in urban areas especially large cities [1]. The utility scale, or the ‘economy of scale’, is also considered as an important reason for the high concentration of the deployment and development of renewable energy in urban areas [2]. By contrast, the deployment and development of renewable energy in rural areas are slower and less popular. In particular, although there is a good potential for rural youth1 to better benefit from renewable energy [3], they do not have very reliable access to renewable energy, at least in comparison with the peers in urban areas. Such an imbalance becomes a reason for the recent formal collaboration between the two large inter-governmental organizations in the field of renewable energy (International Renewable Energy Agency, in abbreviation ‘IRENA’) and youth development (United Nations Children’s Fund, or ‘UNICEF’ in abbreviation) [3]. The low inclusion of rural youth in renewable energy development and its benefits contradicts to the efforts to achieve SDGs, which have a principle of ‘leaving no one behind’. The joint force of IRENA and UNICEF has the objective to reduce energy poverty among the youth (including rural youth) as an effort to achieve the SDGs via providing more inclusive access to and benefit from renewable energy [3]. Similar to the practical efforts, academic studies on rural youth and renewable energy are insufficient. For example, searches in Google Scholar with terms such as ‘rural youth renewable energy’, ‘renewable energy rural youth’, or ‘rural children renewable energy’ only show less than 10 directly related publications each search. Therefore, by briefly analyzing the reasons of the relatively low inclusion of rural youth in renewable energy and also providing some recommendations to reduce the problem, this short article calls for future research and practical efforts in this important field.


3 2 Why rural youth benefit less from renewable energy?
The reasons for the insufficient academic and practical efforts in increasing the benefits of renewable energy for rural youth are multi-dimensional and complex. While it is unable to list all these reasons, this short article introduces a few reasons with the angle of sustainable development.

Lack of awareness
Existing evidence demonstrates that insufficient awareness of renewable energy and its benefits is a reason for the adoption of renewable energy by the youth [4]. Furthermore, there is still no consensus on why special emphasis should be given to this specific group (rural youth). This is somewhat reflected by the missing of an age-specific indicator and/or an indicator monitoring the rural-urban disparity in energy access under the SDG framework (especially SDG 7), and also the unavailability of data for SDG Indicator 16.7.7, which partially evaluates the distribution of decision-making power by age [5].
Also, this specific group often has weaker influence in decision-making, including limited involvement in decisions on renewable energy. For example, a large proportion of rural youth are below the official minimum age to vote or apply for government roles, and they are usually in relative junior positions with limited influence on decision making. In short, the voices of rural youth are less heard when making decisions on the development and deployment of renewable energy. Therefore, there is a relatively low awareness of the needs of rural youth on renewable energy.

Practical difficulties
The low inclusion of rural youth in the development and deployment of renewable energy is also a result of some practical difficulties. Due to the wide presence of small-scale agriculture, as partially monitored by SDG Target 2.3, it is more difficult to achieve the 'economy of scale' for adequately developing and deploying renewable energy in rural areas [6]. This is one practical reason for people living in rural areas (including rural youth) benefit less from renewable energy.
In comparison with urban areas, the development and deployment of renewable energy in rural areas also have more technological challenges and difficulties to access finance [6]. As adequate infrastructure, access to essential technology and finance, and sufficient expected returns are essential to keep renewable energy 'sustainable' [1], it is not surprised to notice that the existing renewable energy are mainly deployed in urban areas while people in rural areas, including the rural youth, benefit less from the development of renewable energy.
Rural youth are also often perceived as marginalized communities which have less access to resources such as training and information [6]. Therefore, although renewable energy has good potential to create jobs in the agriculture sector, its benefits on rural youth may not be equal to other groups (such as adult males).

Insufficient scientific support
A review of literature shows that the academic research on age-sensitive renewable energy development is far from amble. Search results via Google Scholar suggest that the majority scientific studies on age sensitivity are in the more technical fields such as medicine, while age-sensitive research in renewable energy and energy policy is much fewer. UNICEF-Innocenti has developed a framework for gender and age-sensitive social policies and interventions based on scientific evidence [7], but the framework has not been widely applied, especially in studies on renewable energy. This could be a reason for the low inclusiveness of rural youth to benefit from renewable energy.
Although the development of SDG indicators (and also some other similar indicators) has involved rigid scientific processes, the indicators do not provide sufficient scientific support for age-sensitive development of renewable energy, especially in rural areas. This can be observed in the missing of age-sensitive indicator in the SDGs (especially under SDG 2 and SDG 7). Insufficient research on the interactions between SDGs including the trade-offs and synergies between different dimensions of sustainable development [8] also restricts the efforts in exploring the unequal benefits from renewable energy across different groups (including rural-urban and adult-youth disparities).
Furthermore, although there is a tradition of using bioenergy (e.g. for cooking) in many rural areas [9], such use of bioenergy is not consistent with the requirement of healthiness, environmental-friendliness, and cleanness as expected 1 3 by modern renewable energy. There is a need of more scientific support to improve the technology for better using renewable energy (including bioenergy) in rural areas. Although existing studies have provided some useful experiences and implications for improving the use of renewable energy in agriculture [10], there is still a distance ahead.

Recommendations
Having briefly analyzed the reasons for rural youth's lower inclusion in the development and deployment of renewable energy, this section provides a few recommendations for rural youth to better benefit from renewable energy.

More interdisciplinary and holistic research
Interdisciplinary studies with holistic approaches are recommended to improve the inclusion of rural youth in the development and deployment of renewable energy. As shown in the previous sections, there is a lack of cross-discipline research in this field. Therefore, more interdisciplinary studies with holistic approaches would be able to generate useful scientific evidence and practical implications for rural youth to better benefit from renewable energy.
The rapid expansion of literature on the Food-Energy-Water Nexus provides thought-provoking insights to increase the inclusiveness of renewable energy by strengthening its connection with rural development [11]. It would be interesting for future research on the Food-Energy-Water Nexus to pay special attention to rural youth, which is the next generation of renewable energy users yet currently under-explored.
The emerging trend of research on the interactions between SDGs also generates valuable insights for the development and deployment of renewable energy [12], and its better inclusion of rural youth. Currently the development of renewable energy is mainly explored under SDG 7, while future studies on the interactions between SDGs may extend their exploration to the connections between SDG 2 and SDG 7, so that the connections between renewable energy and rural development can be better studied with more attention on rural youth.

More age-sensitive research and interventions
As discussed in the previous section, insufficient age-sensitive research and policy in the field of renewable energy is a challenge for renewable energy to be more inclusive of rural youth. Therefore, this article calls for more age-sensitive research and interventions in renewable energy so that rural youth may better benefit from the development of renewable energy. UNICEF-Innocenti's framework of age-responsive policy has provided some general guidance on applying age-sensitive principles into practical interventions [7]. Experience of age-sensitive research from other fields such as healthcare and education could also generate useful implications for further age-sensitive studies and interventions in the field of renewable energy, so that rural youth may benefit more from renewable energy than the current situation. This also corresponds to the suggestion of promoting interdisciplinary research in relevant fields in the previous sub-section.

More science-policy interfaces
Previous section shows that renewable energy policies do not have sufficient support from scientific evidence, which is a reason for the lack of age-sensitivity of relevant policies. Also, the gaps between scientific research and the delivery of policies remain as a problem for the renewable energy policies to be more inclusive with special attention to the needs of rural youth. Therefore, it is recommended to establish more science-policy interfaces in the development and deployment of renewable energy, via which rural youth may better benefit from renewable energy.
In addition, as the development and deployment of renewable energy is a multi-stakeholder process in which there would be trade-offs on different groups' interest and priorities, more science-policy interfaces would be helpful to increase the participation of rural youth, so that their voices of benefiting from renewable energy could be better heard.

Practice-oriented and context-based approaches
Improving rural youth's access to and use of renewable energy is never an 'ivory tower' question only. Instead it is a practical question which requires strong scientific support for improvements, as shown in the previous paragraphs. Therefore, the approaches aiming to improve renewable energy's benefits on rural youth should be practice-oriented.
Such approaches should be aware of the disparities in local, national, and regional contexts. That means, although there are successful experiences based on certain countries or regions, they cannot be simply transferred into other countries without realizing the differences in the contexts. Instead, a reason of the successful experiences is that the adopted approaches are suitable to the context.
Further to the four recommendations mentioned above, there are of course other useful suggestions which can help rural youth to better benefit from renewable energy. Also, the four commendations are not isolated from each other. Instead, they are inter-connected with each other and should be considered in a more comprehensive perspective.

Conclusion
To date, the development and deployment of renewable energy are not inclusive, and rural youth is one of the groups which do not benefit sufficiently and equally from renewable energy. The insufficient inclusiveness of the development and deployment of renewable energy brings challenges for achieving the SDGs and national level objectives of sustainable development. Therefore, based on the existing research and practice on SDGs, this short article outlines a few reasons, and also provide some possible suggestions for rural youth to better benefit from renewable energy. In particular, more age-sensitive scientific research on renewable energy, as well as more inclusive renewable energy policies would be important for rural youth to better benefit from the development and deployment of renewable energy.
Due to the limited space, this article cannot be comprehensive and it does not exclude other contributions to enhance the inclusiveness of renewable energy. It does not explore the specific details of which and how renewable technologies can be adopted. In fact, although this short article is not a technical or empirical study, it can be considered as a call for future research in this field. This article uses plain language while avoid complicated scientific jargons because this research field is quite interdisciplinary and participated by different types of stakeholders, and more science-policy interfaces would be needed.