Energy is crucial to reducing poverty and hunger, improving health, increasing literacy and education, and improving the lives of women.  However, the vast majority of the poor is dependent on traditional primitive fuels - wood, dung and crop residue.  For many, these energy sources barely allow them to fulfill the basic human needs of nutrition, warmth and light, let alone the possibility of harnessing energy for productive uses, which may help them to end the cycle of poverty.  The link between poverty and energy consumption is clear.  The areas in the world that have the highest levels of poverty also have the lowest levels of modern energy consumption.  For example, per capita consumption of modern energy in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, is a staggering 20 times lower than the global average; 113 kWh compared with a global average of 2465 kWh. 

Amid continuing political challenges, economic hardship and disease, lack of reliable energy remains a primary obstacle to poverty eradication, which is most prevalent in rural areas.  However, the transmission and distribution costs of extending grid electricity to dispersed rural communities, where some 2.8 billion people in the world live, are high.  Decentralized energy technologies, like the Weza portable energy source, are thus the only immediate and effective solution.

Here are some recent projects in this area: