President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to play host to the visiting United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, on Monday at noon, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General
According to a media advisory signed by Oche Egwa on behalf of the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Buhari and Ki-Moon will address a joint press conference at the end of their closed-door session. The meeting is scheduled to hold at noon.
Ki-Moon, according to the statement, will later return to the Presidential Villa for a dinner to be hosted in his honour by the President.
The dinner is billed for the new Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa by 7pm.
Similarly, the UN Secretary General will meet with 10 young leaders to answer questions on development, climate change and the role of young people. Ahead of the meeting, some delegates would be live on radio: Cool FM (96.9) 9:00 – 9:20andNigeria Info FM (95.1) 2:00pm – 3:00pmall GMT+1.
In the light of the large usage of Twitter by young people in Nigeria, there will be a TweetMeet Session that will provide a platform for young leaders and colleagues to discuss development and their role in shaping a better future for all.
It holds on Monday, August 24, 2015 by 5:30 – 6:30 PM GMT+1. The Twitter Channels are: #Action2015NG #SDGs and #SDGsNG @UN_Spokesperson @mcampaign.
The goals of the event are to:
Promote the sustainable development goals and increase momentum and ownership in Nigeria.
Produce and communicate key messages to influence national political actions towards the implementation of the SDGs.
Increase the knowledge of young people in Nigeria and across Africa on the new development agenda, especially on its opportunity for dealing with youth development issues.
Inspire the next generations of leaders on their roles in promoting sustainable development.
Twitter handles of the Young Delegates who will be representing Nigerian Youth: @missamah05 @estherclimate @mareeyama @rotexonline @vinnydrey @edwindaniels @christyasala @ojonwa @SpeshYh @Hamzy12.
It is fortuitous that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has given the indication that a new national chairman will emerge by September, 2015 when the party holds a special convention for that purpose. It is a sure sign that the PDP is ready to reinvent itself after a woeful loss in the recent general elections. The party has similarly indicated its determination to snatch power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which came to power May 29, 2015.
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, head of the PDP fact-finding committee. Photo credit: informationng.com
Ordinarily, the announcement of the impending new national chairman for the PDP should elicit wide applause from the polity and expectations from party faithful across the country of a possible titanic challenge to the APC in the 2019 general elections. The founding fathers of the PDP should also be elated by the good news coming from the party’s national headquarters in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria.
Earlier, the party had constituted a fact-finding committee headed by Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, on why the PDP lost in the last elections. Former President Goodluck Jonathan, who is on record as the first incumbent to have lost and conceded defeat in the country constituted the panel. This was after an unbroken 16 years rule by the PDP.
Why did President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, APC, defeat Jonathan and the PDP? How can the party return to power in 2019. How should the PDP function as an opposition party? What are the lessons to be learnt, if any from the loss, and what remedies could be prescribed to mitigate the impact of the defeat? These are some of the questions the Ekweremadu committee was meant to find answers to.
From the announcement of next month’s national convention it would seem as though the work of the Deputy President of the Senate has been concluded and the recommendations of the panel accepted. It is not clear however if the committee has been disbanded or would continue on the path of midwifing the party once again to victory.
But it is sad that the PDP leadership by the announcement of a national convention next month is yet to come to terms with the enormity of the problem at hand and how to get out of the hubris to face the reality of the task at hand. Either that or the party is still consumed by an inebriated reverie.
Definitely, a convention to elect a new chairman seems right and equitable given the existing zoning structure of the PDP. I cannot however see why it is propitious to do so at this moment. Because the leadership should have realised that the panacea needed to take the party forward and beyond its present state of near comatose is the rebuilding of structures from the scratch. That is from the grassroots to the national level. Anything short of this would yield a worse result from that of the 2015 polls.
From the signs put out by the current leadership headed by acting chairman, Uche Secondus, members of the NWC are determined to hold on to their portfolios and hope that the election of a new chairman would provide the badly needed catalyst that would return PDP to its former winning ways. An action akin to pouring fresh wine into an old, disused and dirty bottle.
Secondus and his co-travellers in the NWC ought to have realised by now that it was not the former national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu that made the PDP to lose the last elections. Therefore the resignation and subsequent replacement of Mu’azu would not affect the party in any way, positive or negative. Only a radical clearing of the augean stable is capable of injecting fresh tonic for the PDP to return to its once boisterous path.
Nigerians are convinced that members of the NWC are filthily corrupt, selfish and greedy. The recent allegations of mind boggling misappropriation of funds running into billions of naira against key members of the NWC reinforces the belief that the national secretariat of the PDP is a bleeding sepulchre. Notwithstanding that there may be some untainted by this corruption perception.
Interestingly, the acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Alhaji Haliru Bello Muhammed, in a shameless bid to wash his hands off the party’s woes disclosed that the PDP lost the last elections because it adopted President Jonathan as its sole candidate in flagrant disobedience to the established rule of zoning and equity. Yet it was the same BOT boss who moved the motion for the adoption of the former President a year ago, in defiance of the voices of reason, good conscience and the wish of the founding fathers that the ticket should be zoned to the North for an equitable contest. well-meaning Nigerians and PDP faithful should therefore impress it on Muhammed and entire apparatchik of the party that it is time to give way to new faces, new voices and new messages that resonate with the wish of the ordinary man, who in any case constitute the bulk of the electorate. Anything short of this is a sure panacea for failure.
The PDP is in urgent need of a credible and charismatic leadership. The current players in the BOT and NWC most of whom are tied to the umbilical cord of the last administration must now out for a new set of players. Surely the party is not only a nest of thieves as the rival APC would want us to believe. There must be men with elevated ethos and patriotic zeal within its fold.
Only recently, the filthy condition of the national secretariat of the PDP has become an issue for intense debate in the social media. This is following after the planned reduction in the workforce by half and slashing of salaries of the workers by 50 percent. All these taking place barely three months after the party vacated power at the centre.
Of course, these are signs of structural disequilibrium which when not addressed would lead to the ultimate destruction of the party. Has anyone done a proper audit of the staff at the secretariat known also as Wadata Plaza? What known or objective criteria was used in the recruitment? Why is the party still being run as an old or broken down colonial office? Does the PDP have an authentic and verifiable data base of party faithful from inception till date?
What most Nigerians do not know however is that Wadata Plaza is a rented block of offices donated by the late Waziri Ibrahim for the party to take off in 1998. No effort has been made to erect a befitting and permanent structure since then. No wonder it has remained disorganised and subject to several interminable manipulations. Indeed one can never be sure what to expect from the PDP National Secretariat each time a complaint, petition or matter is taking there.
It is against this backdrop that I would suggest that large chunk of money realised in the sale of governorship forms in the forthcoming elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states should be devoted to the building of a modern, fully furnished, computerised and permanent edifice. Moving away from its present location is one great way to let the people know that PDP is embarking on a path of redeeming its badly battered image.
Similarly, the party must embark on a fresh membership drive backed by a fully automated data centre, the type set up by the APC in the days leading to the last elections. Members who subscribe must also pay registration fees and annual dues which in turn would become veritable source for raising funds to run the party. Once the process is transparent and accountable, it would engender confidence difficult to break.
Of course, it may be appropriate to inform the leadership that only few Nigerians share in the optimism that the PDP would return to power in 2019. This is because the change mantra which ushered the APC to office has not diminished. If at all, most people are hopeful that the ruling party and President Buhari would keep to the promise of probe and sending corrupt persons to jail, at the least. Once that is done, it may be difficult convincing the people not to vote APC in the next general elections.
Instead, the emphasis should be on how to reverse the majority in the national assembly in favour of the PDP as well as win more states. This can easily be achieved if internal democracy is entrenched and only popularly electable candidates are allowed to fly the party’s flag at all levels. Again, party faithful who lose in a well contested and transparent primary are not likely to defect, thereby guaranteeing cohesion and a united front in a general election.
By and large nobody is advocating that the PDP should invite or import people from the moon and other places in outer space to take over the leadership of the party. Neither is it expected that the negative perception of sleaze could be wiped out overnight. But a determined effort to revamp the structure and elect credible leadership at all levels would definitely elicit positive vibes from the citizenry.
Anything to the contrary is a clueless march to hades, a mindless circumspection that ends in abyss. Definitely, it’s a sure panacea to keep the PDP perpetually on the brink. No one wants that.
By Felix Ofou (a former Editor who lives in Lagos)
The adoption of Carbon Pricing as a key strategy to reducing global carbon emission received a major endorsement recently in Lagos, where stakeholders gathered at a daylong forum to explore inherent modalities.
Participants at the Dialogue
The Breakfast Dialogue on Climate Change, Carbon Pricing and Renewable Energy held on Tuesday, July 18, 2015 at the instance of the Carbon Exchange Trade, SMEFUNDS, Nigeria-German Business Association and the New Nigeria Foundation. The Dialogue had in attendance representatives of corporate business and civil society communities, foundations, research organisations, business associations, the media and academia.
The key outcome of the meeting was the formation of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition Nigeria. With this development, the nation’s Coalition becomes the latest to partner the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, which already has about 15 countries.
The conversation at the Dialogue centred on the theme: “Climate Change, Carbon Emission Reduction & Economic Diversification Taking Action for Sustainable Future”. Through one key and three intervention presentations, the issues of global warming, impacts mitigation, economic and environmental resilience, energy efficiency and investments as well as ultimate emission reduction and wealth creation through carbon pricing were highly espoused and discussed.
Participants at the Dialogue observed that Nigeria must not lose the current opportunity in contribution to the regulations and implementation strategies in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) starting September 2015. They particularly frowned at how the country had stood aloof without tapping into the groundswell of opportunities to wealth creation and economic diversification provided by climate change, renewable energy and particularly in the carbon pricing mechanism. They insisted that China, California, Germany and Sweden had scaled up their renewable energy deployment through carbon pricing and trading regulations, and which is an opportunity available to Nigeria given its huge presence in global fossil fuel trade.
According to the organisers, the Carbon Leadership Pricing Coalition was formed, among other things, to:
Create awareness among policy makers, economic and civil society actors in the country on the mechanism and opportunities in climate change mitigation, through carbon pricing;
Engage in global advancement of carbon emission reduction and overall environmental preservation;
Enable Nigeria attain a low-zero carbon economic growth and diversification
Become the Local Action Hub for climate mitigation, carbon pricing and renewable energy actions including projects/programmes development, education, wealth/opportunity creation and international engagement.
Over 30 participants signed and endorsed the Coalition.
Besides endorsing the formation of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition in the country, participants also requested that the Nigerian government take opportunities in Carbon Pricing through appropriate policy and regulatory provisions as well as stakeholder engagement to enable private sector activism and wealth creation which will empower the economy for diversified growth through investments growth in renewable energy and energy-efficient projects.
This, they reason, will spin-off employment creation through economic diversification, increased health and food security and ultimately revenue generation and financial security for government.
Similarly, they invited key economic and policy actors to take part and explore opportunities presented in the activities the Coalition will be implementing to promote the initiative.
They also agreed on regular Breakfast Conversations to intensify both knowledge and activism on the issues. The next meeting will hold in September.
Innocent Azih is the interim leader of the group, while Professor Femi Ajibola drives the initiative.
Meanwhile, towards preparation for its effective participation during the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding in Paris in December, Nigeria will for two days from Wednesday August 25, 2915 in Abuja convene a training/workshop session.
Besides formally inaugurating its team of Negotiators at the global forum, participants will reflect on the current negotiation text, to cluster negotiating teams along the thematic negotiating issues.
The Stockholm Industry Water Award (SIWA) was on Sunday, August 23, 2015 in Sweden awarded to CH2M, a global service and engineering company, for developing and advancing methods to clean water, and increasing public acceptance of recycled water.
Jacqueline Hinman, Chairman and CEO of CH2M (left), receiving the award from SIWI Chairman Peter Forssman in Stockhlom, Sweden
“CH2M is thrilled to be the recipient of the 2015 Stockholm Industry Water Award. The advances in water re-use technology developed by CH2M have helped revolutionise water re-use and availability, and build safe long-term water supplies for communities around the world. But without our clients, none of this would be possible,” said Jacqueline Hinman, Chairman and CEO of CH2M, after accepting the award from SIWI Chairman Peter Forssman during a ceremony held at the ongoing World Water Week in Stockholm.
CH2M has invented, implemented and refined methods for cleaning used water back to drinking water quality. However, since this water is only valuable if people actually use it, the firm has put significant effort into building public acceptance and appreciation. They pioneered the application of social science to better understand the reasons why people reject the notion of reuse and what might be done to change that mindset. This research, combined with demonstrations, education and transparency has dispelled myths around use of treated wastewater and paved the way for a surge in interest in and acceptance of putting purified sewage water back in household pipes.
“CH2M’s work for public acceptance of drinking treated wastewater is impressive. They are an engineering company that has gone beyond their technical roots to work for a better world. We must focus on the water we have, and make sure we use it well and can use it again, and again,” said Peter Forssman, Chairman of SIWI.
“CH2M’s commitment to water re-use remains steadfast, and our journey continues from here. Water scarcity is a global issue that requires innovative thinking, technology and strong relationships with government and the community to solve. Receiving the 2015 Stockholm Industry Water Award is a tremendous testament to the landmark projects we have worked on with our clients around the world and the passion of our employees, who are dedicated to delivering solutions that secure a sustainable future for generations to come,” said Jacqueline Hinman.
“In a rapidly urbanizing world where the vast majority of sewage spills untreated out into the environment, the transformative technologies and strategic communication of this year’s SIWA winner has provided a significant step towards future water security of cities,” the Award Committee stated when the winner was announced in June this year.
The SIWA was established in 2000 to stimulate and celebrate outstanding and transformative water achievements by companies in improving production, managing risks, finding solutions and contributing to wise water management. The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) were partners in establishing the award, which is also supported by International Water Association (IWA) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Founded in 1946, employee-owned CH2M is a global leader in consulting, design, design-build, operations, and programme management for government, civil, industrial, and energy clients. The firm’s work is concentrated in the areas of water, transportation, environment, nuclear, energy, facilities and urban environments. It is based in Denver, Colorado. In the 1960s, CH2M pioneered the third, advanced stage of effluent treatment by removing excess phosphorous, nitrogen and trace metals, restoring the used water of the South Tahoe Public Utility to pristine purity. In the 1970s, CH2M designed the world’s first surface water indirect potable re-use plant, improving the water quality for more than one million people in northern Virginia. CH2M continued to evolve water re-use practices and in the early 2000s worked with Singapore’s national water agency, to not only prove the safety of potable reuse, but to win public acceptance with the country’s NEWater project.
Effective August 21, 2015, SPDC JV lifted the force majeure on gas supplies to NLNG from the Eastern Gas Gathering System (EGGS-1) following repair of a sabotage leak on the line. The force majeure was declared on August 4, 2015.
The Joint Investigation Team which visited the site found that the leak was caused by a crude theft connection, apparently installed by people who thought the line was transporting crude oil.
European and African scientists in a new research have warned of imminent risks posed by the increasing air pollution that could have negative impact on human health, meteorology and regional climate in West African cities.
Professor Peter Knippertz of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Photo credit: www.frontiersin.org
A report published by the Nature Climate Change states that the “rapidly expanding cities such as Lagos in Nigeria, Accra in Ghana and Abidjan in Ivory Coast were producing large amounts of harmful aerosols and gaseous pollutants.”
According to the scientists led by Professor Peter Knippertz of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, in an EU-funded research project, “Human health, food security and the climate of the region is at risk and there is an urgent need for better observations and models to quantify the magnitude and characteristic of these impacts,” the report warns.
It further explains that the West African “climate is characterized by a sensitive monsoon system which controls winds, temperature, clouds and most importantly rain. Changes in air pollutants may be causing changes in the solar heating and clouds, which in turn may lead to changes the rainfall and temperature,” the scientists say adding, “As the population of the region grows these changes may intensify.”
The scientists also warned that “the region has been, and is projected to be, subject to substantial greenhouse-gas-induced warming with the monsoonal flows particularly sensitive to the impact of aerosols.”
Professor Mat Evans of the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories at the University of York said: “The story here is that climate change is happening, there’s no doubt about that. How that manifests itself with something like rainfall, which is what really matters, is much more complicated.
“If we are missing key processes in our models because we have not gone out and tested them in challenging environments then we have less confidence in what is going on.”
He advised that future policy advice be based on sound scientific observations from the region. “If you are going to make plans for how to deal with this in the future you want to do it from a position of knowledge rather than a position of ignorance. We need to get more observations in the region and we have started to do that.
“At the moment we don’t have the observations to be able to test the models to even know how good the predictions are.”
Stressing the urgent need to collect the much needed data from the atmosphere above the region, Evans said that they would need to make predictions about what they think would happen in a five-year timescale, 10-year timescale and 50-year timescale.
“The environmental degradation maybe local but the implications can be regional and global. One of the potential impacts is population migration. If people have no food because the climate is changing in their region then they will move. There are knock on effects,” he emphasised.
About 200 houses and huts were swept away on Friday in Makurdi, the Benue state capital, following over four hours of torrential downpour. Many valuables worth millions of naira were also submerged in the flood.
Makurdi is located along the Benue River, the nation’s second biggest waterbody after the Niger.
Flooding in Makurdi. Photo credit: sahara reporters
The latest incident which has taken its toll on residents was the second major flood disaster in the state capital, in the last four weeks.
The hardest hit areas included the Wurukum Roundabout and Railway Crossing, Wurukum Market, Judges Quarters on Gboko Road, Logo and Angwa Jukum, which were completely taken over by flood water
Also affected was the personal residence of the Second Republic Governor of the state, late Aper Aku, Benue State University (BSU), Living Faith and Dunamis churches, Steam fast and houses on Daniel Amokachi Avenue were all submerged in water.
Shops and stalls at the popular Wurukum Market were also not spared as most of them were filled with water, while traders battled hard to save whatever they could from the flood.
Reacting to the development, the state Commissioner of Water Resources and Environment, Nicholas Wende, lamented that the state would need about N100 billion to stem the flood menace in the state.
He said the state government had submitted a request to the Federal Government for intervention adding that the government was expecting the federal government to also assist in dredging River Benue as a permanent solution.
Wende explained that the state government had constituted a committee to identify flood prone areas with a view to taking measures to control the disaster.
World leaders, water experts and development professionals will meet for six days beginning from Sunday, August 23, 2015 in Stockholm, the Swedish capital city, to seek solutions to the world’s several escalating water crises. With both World Water Week and Stockholm Water Prize celebrating their 25th jubilee, several special events and campaign finales will take place during the Week.
Stockholm, Sweden
The yearly event is organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), a Stockholm-based policy institute that provides and promotes water wise solutions for sustainable development.
According to the body, the role of water for development, this year’s World Water Week theme, cannot be overestimated. It adds that water is the foundation for all aspects of human and societal progress.
“We need it to survive – literally, to quench our thirst, to prepare our food, and maintain our hygiene, but it is also central to economic and social development, sustainable growth, and a prerequisite for healthy ecosystems,” Britt-Louise Andersson, Communications Director, SIWI, said in a statement.
“While we need to ensure access to safe water for those 1.8 billion people who do not have it today, we must also manage the global rise in demand for water from growing economies by increasing water productivity, and find incentives for using it more effectively. Water security is both a condition for, and a result of, sustainable development.”
At World Water Week, the complex challenges related to water and development will be addressed by over 3,000 participants from some 120 countries, representing governments, the private sector, multilateral organisations, civil society and academia. Speakers at the Opening session on 24 August will include the Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfven; the Prime Minister of Jordan, Abdullah Ensour; the President of the Marshall Islands, Christopher J. Loeak; the Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Adnan Z. Amin, and Peru’s Minister of State for Environment and President of the COP20, Manuel Gerardo Pedro Pulgar-Vidal Otálora.
During the Week, the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize will be awarded to Rajendra Singh of India, for his innovative water restoration efforts, improving water security in rural India, and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions for those most in need. The prize will be awarded to Rajendra Singh by H.M. Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, during a ceremony in Stockholm City Hall on Wednesday 26 August.
Other prizes that will be presented are the Stockholm Industry Water Award, which will be awarded, on Sunday 23 August, to CH2M, a Colorado-based global service and engineering company, for developing and advancing methods to clean water, and increasing public acceptance of recycled water, and the Stockholm Junior Water Prize which, on Tuesday 25 August is given to one national team out of the 29 competing nations by H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.
Water is a central part in a range of issues that will shape the world in the decades to come. They will be discussed in-depth during World Water Week:
Water and food. About 800 million people in the world are undernourished, and prevalence is going down. Overweight and obesity rates are heading the other direction and today, around 2 billion people are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, about a third of all food produced is either lost, or thrown out by the consumer. Since most food production demands huge amounts of water, this means rivers of water are literally lost as a result of food being lost or discarded, or overeating.
Water and climate change. Climate change is to a large extent water change. We feel the impact of climate change through water. Increased rainfall variability, less reliable monsoons, prolonged droughts and reduced water storage in snow and ice are just some effects. California is currently suffering the worst drought in living memory, straining parts of the state’s economy. Cities are rationing water and food prices are increasing. Water is also critical for the mitigation of climate change, as many efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions depend on reliable access to water resources. Expansion of renewable energy will to a large extent also depend on access to water – on all levels.
Water and conflict. Approximately 276 river basins cross the political boundaries of two or more countries, and serve as a primary source of freshwater for approximately 40 percent of the world’s population. Decisions on water allocations can be a source of conflict, but also a catalyst for cooperation and peace building. Cooperation over transboundary waters is an opportunity for people, regions and states to strengthen and develop cooperation, and to open up new paths of working together.
Water and health. An estimated 1.8 billion people live without access to safe water and 2.4 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. Diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene kill more than 5,000 people each day.
Besides organising the annual World Water Week and hosting the Stockholm Water Prize, the Junior Stockholm Water Prize and the Stockholm Industry Water Award, SIWI performs research, builds institutional capacity and provides advisory services
“Smart Villages: New Thinking for off-grid communities worldwide” is a collection of opinion pieces in renewable energy. It is a chronicle of ideas by experts aimed at tackling the issues of energy as a catalyst for sustainable development – health, food security, education gender equality, governance, security and employment.
Off-grid lighting in Africa. Photo credit: unep.org
The 124-page book, which is comprised of 16 essays written by scientists and leading thinkers from around the world, was compiled by Prof. Sir Brian Heap, Senior Adviser to Smart Villages and launched at the World Conference of Science Journalists, Seoul, South Korea in June 2015 by Dr. Bernie Jones, a project co-leader of Smart Villages.
In the Preface to the book, Prof. Heap said: “We published these essays with policymakers and decision takers in mind – planners of sustainable off-grid well-being faced with the demanding challenges of lifting the bottom billion out of the poverty trap”.
It is a publication therefore that is in tandem with the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All initiative (se4all.org) and the new Sustainable Development Goals, post-September 2015.
Scope
A browse through the book shows the scope of the book as covering a range of viewpoints on the complex problem of energy access in developing countries. “On the supply side, it asks, what are the scientific and technological advances of today and tomorrow that could transform the way that energy, particularly electricity, could be made more readily available for rural transformation?
“On the demand side, what are the enabling factors that make energy access a catalyst for sustainable development in off-grid villages? What framework conditions need to be put in place so that local entrepreneurs can establish enterprises to deliver and make productive use of energy in remote villages, the home of some 1.3 billion poor and under-served?”
Essays Synopsis
It begins with the concept – “Energy for Development,” authored by the project co-leader and Manager of Smart Villages Initiatives, John Holmes and Terry van Gevelt, respectively. The concept enumerates the options of electrification technology for smart villages. It also states how energy access to rural communities could positively improve education, health, food security, productive enterprise, participatory democracy, quality of life and environment.
Energy Innovation For Smart Villages by Daniel M. Kammen, a professor of Energy at the University of California draws up the advantages on off-grid systems and how diverse technology options could expand village energy service. Kammen also drew a roadmap to clean energy in, and ended with an action agenda for smart villages.
Transforming Rural Communities Through Mini-grids by Prof. AbuBakr Bahaj, principal investigator of the e4D programme presented case studies of mini-grids in some countries where e4D had worked with villages to “determine their needs, aspirations and goals with respect to electrification.”
Leapfrogging to Sustainable Power by Dr. Vasant Kumar of the Department of Material Science, University of Cambridge stressed the need for a close link between off-grid energy paradigm for electrification and development on one hand and the evolution of clean, green and low-carbon power.
He emphasised the importance of exploring new opportunities, energy storage technologies and recycling.
Ahmad Zaidee Laidin, Secretary General Malaysian Academy of Sciences’ Smart Villages – The Malaysian Approach, highlights the development of electricity in Malaysia and how rural development has been achieved there.
Laidin draws a table of Malaysia’s path to rural development in its Vision 2020, including the government’s 10-year transformation programme (2010-2020) for rural development.
The country’s 21st Century Village Initiative (21CV) as stated in the Smart Villages – The Malaysian Approach, aims to encourage the youth to remain in the villages. “The 21CVs have and will be developed using the following initiatives: 39 state-driven modern integrated farms; 15 private-sector-driven large scale fruit and vegetable farms; 39 enhanced village cooperatives in tourism, plantation and cottage industries and 39 encouraging selected university, technical and vocational graduates as youth entrepreneurs.”
Laidin further draws the advantages of electricity beyond lighting to include education, e-commerce, agriculture advances, e-health, community empowerment and ICT.
Can Energy Access Improve Health? By Prof. Wole Soboyejo of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University is premised on the challenges of life in Mpala village in the Laikipia district of Kenya.
This was Soboyejo’s personal experience of communities that lived with no access to electricity.
The people “relied on kerosene lanterns, resulting in environmental pollution and about 80 percent incidence of pulmonary health problems.”
Soboyejo told of how they explored options to meet the challenge. They arrived at a solar-powered solution lantern with a 2-watt solar panel and a 6-volt motorcycle battery. It reduced the pulmonary health problems.
Energy Provision and Food Security in Off-grid Villages by Prof. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (a Geneticist and Chief Mentor of M. S. Swaminathan) and Prof. Parthasarathy Chenna Kesavan (a Geneticist and Radiobiologist) discusses the interrelationship between energy provision and food security in off-grid villages.
It describes off-grid villages as vulnerable because of lack of electricity, which enables the development of small-scale village industries, locally. Foreseeing modern agriculture as heavily dependent on energy, the essay observes “a strong positive correlation between energy input and food output…” A chain of agricultural production processes, the two Professors posit, “make heavy demands on energy supply.”
The essay also suggests the use of biomass, biogas, wind, solar power, and ocean thermal energy for electrification towards sustainable food production.
“…the vision for an off-grid smart village is one that achieves food security by using pathways of production that depend increasingly on biological rather than chemical inputs…renewable and decentralised energy services will provide the motive power required for machinery and irrigation, the development of cold-chain infrastructure to reduce waste, and the integration of communication technologies to help with pest management, soil health and improved market access,” the essay postulates.
Smart Villages for Smart Voters by Dr. Mukulika Banerjee (associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics) gives a picture of voter enthusiasts, most of who live in villages. “The most dedicated voters are not the well-educated urban middle-classes but the poorest, most discriminated against and least educated, mainly in villages and small towns…”
Banerjee’s essay tells of how India’s electronic voting machines, powered by batteries, have revolutionised the electoral system. The smart machines are used in smart villages and “proved to be both fraud and fool-proof.” It sees smart villages as initiating change in voter attitude, which allows them play “their own roles in the working of the democratic system and the effect of their individual vote has in determining the composition of government.”
The essay finally opines that un-smart places have limits, especially in people’s “access to news, literacy, information – all of which severally hampers their ability to make their lives better. It is now time to deliver smart villages to these smart voters,” Banerjee suggests.
Public Policy Targets for Energy Access by Benjamin K. Sovacool (a professor of Business and Social Sciences and Director of the Center for Energy Technologies, Department of Business and Technology, Aarhus University), argues that energy poverty arises from a market failure that only governments and public institutions are well-suited to engage.
The essay’s markets and intervention assesses the problem of markets as being “less effective for common-pool goods or public goods that need agreed-upon rules or sanctions – goods such as clean air or improved energy security.”
Sovacool sees the poor as falling through the cracks and “too politically distant and economically costly to provide with energy services.” he also writes that “without strong public policy intervention, hundreds of millions of people will remain mired in energy insecurity for many decades to come.”
The Disturbing trends quotes the International Energy Agency (IEA) as estimating that by 2030, almost one billion people will still be without electricity and 2.6 billion people will still be without clean cooking facilities.
Under the Positive benefits, Sovacool cites Nepal as an example where “evaluations of a rural energy programme involving micro-hydro units have earned US$8 in benefits per household for every US$1.40 in total expenditures.”
Similarly, in Sub-Saharan Africa, he states that the UN reports a woman who generates more than US$46 in economic benefits in the first year selling solar lanterns.
Energy Policies for Off-grid Villages in Tanzania written by Andrew Mnzava, Senior Research Officer with the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) in Tanzania discusses the interrelation between energy and development.
It enunciates health, education, food security, productive enterprise and environment as directly linked to uninterrupted energy access.
Unlike the Tanzanian national policy for off-grid villages, which is coordinated by the Rural Energy Board (REB), according to Mnzava, “many countries do not have renewable energy policies that foster the development of clean energy and directly support off-grid energy development.”
The essay further tells about the existence of Tanzania’s local and national energy developers who generate and supply power to surrounding communities. He identifies financing of energy projects as biggest challenges – high interests rates from loans are clogs.
He talks about the importance of institutions and regulatory framework, including the National Environmental Management Council, which provides EIA certificates, etc.
Communities-consumers looks at the ability and capacity of consumers as well as cluster communities to pay for supplied power as a challenge. Mnzava draws a comparative table to show that upfront and annualised costs of electricity is more expensive than the same of kerosene.
WillPrivate-Sector Finance Support Off-grid Energy? by Tobias S. Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Energy Politics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology takes private-sector financing of off-grid energy to be a challenge.
Though he sees the sector as veritably important if the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative is to be achieved by 2030, confident atmosphere in the off-grid sector, Schmidt posits, must be created for the Private-Sector investors.
Return on investment gives prominence to ‘hurdle rate’ above the normal threshold. More so, “the use of modern energy services should lead to an increase in income of the villagers,’ which would help them afford the consumption rates of the energy.
He talks about Risk of investment, Scale of investment and Policy implications where he calls for the creation of “more favourable conditions for private-sector finance” in order to increase the contribution of the sector to off-grid rural energy.
How Electricity Changed Our Lives by Michael J. Ssali, a seasoned journalist and Bureau Chief of the Daily Monitor draws a picture of a kerosene-enabled lamp used in Uganda called tadooba and the high deforestation as a result of high dependence of the people on firewood. “Uganda’s forests are diminishing because about 95 percent of the country’s households depend on firewood and charcoal for cooking.”
In Changed lives, Ssali gives a vivid story of how the provision of electricity changed the lives of the people of rural Uganda as well as how New businesses have sprang. “To a large extent, rural electrification has contributed to a reduction in the migration of youth from rural to urban areas.”
He posits that electricity is a means of creating Jobs for a growing population, especially in the area of agriculture.
Javier Gonzalez Diaz, an affiliate lecturer at the Centre of Development Studies of Cambridge University writes in his Energy and ICT for Educational Inclusion in Latin America that, as in other regions of the world, Latin America also faces several urgent challenges. “Children and youth living in remote rural locations are literally disconnected from the world, excluded from the opportunities provided by global learning.”
The essay highlights the importance of access to smart energy in rural areas in order to pave the way for access to modern information and communication technologies. This, in turn, could transform the learning experience for pupils and teachers alike in those areas.
It further gives a differential percentages of schools with access to electricity and those without in some Latin American countries. “This unequal geographic and socio-economic pattern of electrification strongly affects the educational opportunities of Latin American children and their chance of achieving a better future.”
Can access to energy and ICT make a difference? The essay answers, yes. While access to energy “opens a range of economic and social development alternatives for geographically isolated communities,” Diaz argues, ICT can “strongly and positively enhance education in several ways.”
In real life stories: aiming for the stars, the essay gives examples of communities in which “lives are being changed in poor, rural and remote areas.”
Improving Life for Women and Girls in Sierra Leone by Christiana A. Thorpe, a former Minister of Education in Sierra Leone states that four of the country’s six million population live in the rural areas with no access to electricity.
Smart villages in Sierra Leone: How did they start? of the essay tells of the government’s removal of financial and technical barriers while distributing solar home systems in rural areas.
Thorpe states that the solar network was helping to change the lives of women and girls in the areas of attitudes, health, education, environment, savings on energy costs, opportunities for income generation and employment.
Also, the essay states the role that Barefoot Women Solar Engineers Association of Sierra Leone (BWSEASL) is playing in “getting solar technology to all the country’s remote and inaccessible villages.
It finally gives reasons at Is the approach sustainable? why BWSEASL approach is. Residents are willing to pay for the technology; trained women are now entrepreneurs and now have a Solar System Home Management Committee (SSHMC) as a network.
AWay of life: Energy Provision in Africa by Murefa Barasa, Managing Partner at EED Advisory Limited, Kenya states that charcoal is the most important but least understood energy source of the African continent. He also adds that “the lack of accurate data on charcoal trends remains a key challenge in managing the threat of unsustainable charcoal production.”
The essay views charcoal, which is a preferred energy source for cooking and heating in East Africa as having a complex value chain. While listing the chain to include brokers, transporters, wholesalers, retailers and recipients of unofficial payments, Barasa states that the reason for the charcoal market is because it out-competes briquettes, kerosene, LPG and electricity, which are its alternatives.
In his summary, he says that “the urban charcoal market is essential for East Africa because it remains a central part of household energy.”
A Better Future for the Bottom Billion by Prof. Deepak Nayyar, an Emeritus Professor of Economics is the last of the essays in Smart Villages: New Thinking for Off-grid Communities Worldwide. It poses the five W questions: “Who are the poorest people in the world?”; “Where do they live?”; “Why are they poor?”; “What are the attempted solutions?”; “Why does the problem persist?”; “Is a better future possible (When)?”
Nayyar gives a Demographic view of the poor concentration in three regions of the developing word of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia as well as in the Latin America and the Caribbean.
In Absolute deprivation, he talks about energy and income poverty as keeping the people in absolute deprivation. “Economic exclusion denies people the social opportunities and political participation that might otherwise help them to improve their lives.”
However, in spite of attempted solutions, which include rural electrification and other programmes, the author posits that “widespread poverty persists despite such programmes” and suggests that “Orthodox thinking among economists, increasingly accepted by policy practitioners and political leaders in governments, stresses the importance of economic growth as the only solution to the problem of poverty.”
This essay sees persistent problem of abject countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa in spite of economic growth of the regions. “This poverty persisted essentially because rapid economic growth was associated with a rise in economic inequality, and little if any of the increments in income accrued to the poorest…energy poverty reinforced the problem.”
Nayyar sees a better future creation of employment, social protection and human development are central in determining economic growth; he sees employment and livelihoods as “critical as the institutional mechanism that mediates between growth in aggregate income for the economy and growth in private income for individuals or households.”
Initial conditions such as creation of physical infrastructure in rural areas; grid and off-grid, with other non-conventional sources of energy; investment in rural roads, transport and communications; irrigation and storage facilities to boost agricultural income; etc by government, must me met,” says Nayyar.
On the whole, Smart Villages: New Thinking for Off-grid Communities Worldwide gives up-to-date accounts of the promotion of energy access in remote areas of the world. It “explores how energy access for the poor can perform catalytic role” in general development.
The insights portrayed therein “will inform leaders, policy-makers and communicators, as well as encourage a wider debate internationally.”
It is a most-read book for governments whose immediate priority is to improve living standards of their people in the rural areas.
Dikko Abdullahi, comptroller general, bows out of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) in style as he performed his last official function by inaugurating a three-storey state-of-the-art hospital facility on Tuesday. It is one of the lasting legacies he left behind in Customs where he worked for 27 years.
From Left: Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai; Commissioner for Health, Kaduna State, Prof. Andrew Noc; and Comptroller-General of Customs, Dikko Inde Abudullahi, during the commissioning of Customs Hospital Karu, Abuja on Tuesday. Photo credit: Bayoor Ewuoso
Abdullahi bowed out of service after six years in the saddle as comptroller general of NCS, leaving a legacy for the people of Karu, a densely populated, but largely underdeveloped part of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
As a fitting climax to his 27-year career at the Customs, he unveiled a three-story imposing hospital build by the NCS to improve the welfare of its staff and Nigerians living around the area on Tuesday, August 18.
Nanman Nandap, medical director of the NCS hospital, Karu, described the hospital as a comprehensive medical facility equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and a well-trained staff. He listed some of the features of the hospital as modern radio-diagnostic and ultrasound equipment; three modular theatres and an intensive care unit with a central gas supply system. It also has executive wards and a mortuary.
Nasir El-Rufai, Kaduna State governor, lauded the management skill of Abdullahi, especially his commitment to the welfare of staff. He expressed mixed feelings on his retirement and described him as “a fine public servant.”
The out-going Custom’s boss described the new edifice as a consolidation of his welfare programme through the delivery of quality health care services to officers and their families.
“This complex will not only cater for the need of Customs officers and their families. The entire Karu community will benefit from its services and reach. From the level of sophistication of our equipment and the quality of our personnel, this facility will also serve as a reference hospital for the entire FCT community,” Abdullahi said.
It will be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had accepted Abdullahi’s voluntary resignation as comptroller-general of the Nigeria Customs Service with effect from Tuesday, August 18.
