Lighting Africa

http://www.lightingafrica.org/

In my search for an uplifting environmental story, I remembered a program I heard about called Lighting Africa, which is a program run by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Lighting Africa is interesting because it attempts to completely transform entire communities and countries. Without light, people lack productivity at night, as their activity is dictated by natural light and dark. Because of the need for light, many African countries unable to afford electricity resort to fuel-based resources which are burned for lighting. One such fuel is kerosene, which is expensive; according to the website, African households using these fuels spend around thirty percent of their disposable income in order to experience lighting. Additionally, fuel-based lighting can cause health problems and can be a fire hazard. While these issues are of great concern, another detrimental side effect of such fuel-based lighting stems from the Greenhouse Gases which are emitted. Thus, not only is it in the interest of these families financially to change from such a system, but it is in the interest of the international community to help mitigate these problems by establishing lighting alternatives for Sub-Saharan Africa.

This is where Lighting Africa comes in. The point of the program is to develop a cheaper and cleaner way of lighting Sub-Saharan Africa, for those who do not have access to an electricity grid. Given this, the program focuses on implementing non-electricity grid options which allow people in the region opportunities which their electricity grid counterparts receive. The website states that the program offers customers the latest LED, florescent, human-cranking, and solar technologies.

What is key here is how affordable these technologies are supposed to be. This way Africans are able to focus on their own development as individuals rather than on attempting to be sustainable. I think there is a major issue with people believing they have to focus either on their own sustainability or the sustainability of the environment. Unfortunately, I would assume that underdeveloped communities are focused less on helping the environment and more on ensuring their own survival. While a completely legitimate notion, there are issues which stem from this, as people may ignore actions which lead to environmental degradation. Thus, Lighting Africa in theory is effective in the way it attempts to address this concern by offering lighting that is good for both the environment and people’s budgets. Furthermore, by creating a foundation consisting of efficient, cheap, and clean lighting for developing communities, Lighting Africa is attempting to place these communities on the “bottom rung of the economic ladder”, which Jeffery Sachs argues is the first step toward entering the global market economy. Ultimately, while there may be problems with top-down transformation and development like this, Lighting Africa is an attempt to address both environmental and economic issues in order to build a better future for Africans as well as the rest of the world.