Even today 600 million Africans don’t have access to electricity. The rural areas are particularly affected by this as night time economic activities are essentially non-existent. This lack of electricity provides huge obstacles in everyday tasks that we take for granted, general house chores, students cannot study at night and astonishingly 3.5 million deaths occur every year because of pollutants and toxins produced from expensive solid fuel fires within their own homes.
The Akon Lighting Africa project not only seeks to provide these people with the electricity that has become so integral to everyday life for us but will also seek to provide the skills and expertise in this area in Africa. At a United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Forum the founders, Akon, Thione Niang and Samba Bathily announced the creation of a “Solar Academy”, the first of its kind on the entire continent and is sure to become a powerhouse of innovation for the future of African technicians, engineers and entrepreneurs.
“We have the sun and innovative technologies to bring electricity to homes and communities. We now need to consolidate African expertise and that is our objective” explained Samba Bathily at the SE4All Forum.
“We are doing more than just investing in clean energy. We are investing in human capital. We can achieve great milestones and accelerate the African transformation process on condition that we start training a new generation of highly qualified African engineers, technicians and entrepreneurs now” Samba continued.
This project is as part of a partnership with Solektra international, an Akon Lighting Africa partner and its main aim is to reinforce expertise in installing and maintaining solar powered electric systems and micro-grids which has been taking off in recent times in rural Africa. They will also be providing equipment and training programs which could be the start of a massive industry for African countries.
The highly positive results that have been observed since the project launched show that a local presence and practical solutions are key to fixing problems in Africa, and we hope to see further positive results in the near future.