African economies leaving money on the table with current charcoal policies.

Testing our assumptions in Africa

I want to apologize for the lack of updates on our blog.

As you may know, The Charcoal Project (TCP) was traveling in East Africa for the past two weeks.

We had hoped that the strong penetration of mobile phone technology in Africa would translate into widespread internet access. Little did we know this is not always the case. For example, in Rwnada, we discovered that a high speed internet connection for a home can cost around U$17,000/month!

Our goal on this trip was to advance two of our most important initiatives: our sustainable biomass and efficiency project with the schools in Rubaare, Uganda; and our prep work for next year’s International Conference on Charcoal. As you may recall, the conference will focus on sustainable charcoal and solid biomass fuel solutions for domestic and productive energy across the continent.

But beyond these twin purposes, the trip to Africa was also an opportunity to test basic assumptions about East Africa’s unsustainable consumption and inefficient production of charcoal. For example, we wanted to know if solid biomass fuel consumption and production was indeed unsustainable. Is there an appetite for efficiency and renewables at a household and industrial level? How ripe is the market for innovation in the solid biomass fuel sector?

Then, on a personal level, the trip across Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a tremendous opportunity for us to speak with experts, meet the people developing new businesses and ideas, and, finally, to get an up close view of the actual conditions on the ground.

I’ll share more details about each initiative later. But for now, I wanted to share a glimpse of what I saw and heard in Africa.

Refining the long view

My trip to Africa was the culmination of months of preparation for our first Symposium & Workshop on Charcoal in Africa. The June 15 event was part of a weeklong conference organized by the Association of Tropical Biology & Conservation and the Society for Conservation Biology. The idea to focus on the current sustainability of charcoal was the brainchild of TCP Board member, Tuyeni Mwampamba, and her colleague at UNAM’s CIGA research center, Adrian Ghilardi.

I won’t go into details about the symposium and workshop here except to tell you that the event brought together leading scientists, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, and development agencies from around the world. We hope to make some of the presentations available online shortly.

At the workshop, our exploration of solutions to Africa’s charcoal problem boiled down to these three points:

1. Governments should formalize their domestic charcoal markets by decriminalizing its production, transport, and commerce.

2. National energy and finance ministries need to include charcoal and solid biomass fuel production in their country’s energy matrix. A free and transparent market could become an important source of revenue that could contribute to national budgets.

3. Solid biomass fuels can be an important source of renewable energy for economic development in Africa. In much the same way as solid biomass fuels have taken off in Europe, Africa stands to gain greatly by embracing this renewable, potentially greenhouse gas neutral fuel.

View the list of presenters and participants to the Symposium & Workshop.

Finally, We’d like to extend our gratitude to Switzerland’s international development agency, SDC, for making this event possible!

Next stop Rubaare, Uganda.

It’s been over six months since we began work on a integrated biomass energy solution for REF, the Rubaare Education Foundation which provides low-cost, but quality education to some 1,600 primary and high school students in the region.

I was eager to meet Henry Twinemasiko, the founder and director of REF with whom I’d been corresponding with for months. Henry was kind enough to meet me at the border crossing between Rwanda and Uganda.

What I didn’t expect was the heart-warming reception I received from the high-school band, followed by an specially convened assembly in the school chapel.

My visit had been anticipated for a long time, so I had a chance to meet with staff, parent associations, and students. I was very moved by the complete dedication of the staff at all levels to carry out the school’s mission, despite the significant challenges. Chief among these is the impact that high food prices are having on the school’s budget. The continued rise of staple items is forcing Henry to make very painful and difficult decisions.

At one point, unable to decide whether to raise tuition fees or provide the students with inferior corn meal for “posho,” Henry decided to put it to a vote among the students. By a margin of 3 to 1 the students decided the cheaper food option was preferable to raising fees on their struggling parents.

But I also saw students dropping out of school during my visit due to the inability of their parents to meet their basic tuition. Rising food prices are clearly affecting children’s ability to receive an education in this part of East Africa.

Despite the harsh reality of poverty’s impact on education, in conversations with Henry and the staff, it was decided that our BEEP effort should go forward as it would ultimately result in a reduction in school expenditures.

We’ll be posting more videos and photographs about our trip to Rubaare later in the week.

The Take-Away

Based on the feedback and consultations with our various partners on the ground and elsewhere, it was decided that both initiatives – the International Conference on Charcoal and the BEEP initiative in Uganda – are today more important than ever.

Today I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that our efforts are slowly but surely working addressing energy poverty issues on the ground and in the larger policy arena. But the road ahead won’t be easy or quick. We’re going to need all the help we can get.

 

 

J. Kim Chaix

Director