SoC01 Renewable Energy: A remedy to socioeconomic affliction

JonesLuba · 2021-09-30T20:17:14+00:00

It is without doubt a fact, that renewable natural resource is a thread that holds together the social economic fabric of the African continent. With almost 55% of the global renewable natural resources occurring in Africa, our continent leads in having an abundant stock of these resources, including solar energy, wind power, wave and tidal power, geothermal power, hydropower and biomass. But having resources without utilising them will not bring about any change in the social and economic sector. Given the opportunity and authority of leadership in either continental level or country level, I will apply the following strategies in order to pursue sustainable use of the renewable natural resources and foster social economic welfare. Establishing strategic policies and strictly implementing them. Many African countries have been blessed with an abundant amassment of renewable natural resources, but regardless of their high occurrence on the continent, many countries have failed to exploit these resources effectively and this is due to lack of strategic policies and their poor implementation being one of the causes. A natural resource like solar power is an abundantly occurring resource in Africa which is avital energy source that is applied in domestic activities including cooking and heating utilities. But it is poorly exploited compared to other harmful alternatives like firewood and charcoal. According to Siggid Salih; Managing renewable natural capital in Africa, the tree cover of Africa is declining rapidly than reported officially, basically due to continuous increase in traditional wood fuel consumption. He further on states that, “so far the recommended policies to reduce deforestation in Africa are either overly general and non-integrated or too simple, applied at small scale and are not applied widely to produce significant impact in a single country”. This implies that policies have failed to limit or abolish the use of harmful energy alternatives, whose consumption increases almost every year. It is therefore vital to impose strict strategic policies which will limit and if possible, abolish the use of alternative harmful energy sources, thus create an opportunity for the sustainable exploitation of renewable natural resources including solar power and biomass as a primary domestic energy source. Setting affordable prices for renewable natural resource energy. The sustainable use of renewable natural resources requires the full exploitation of the resources, which highly depends on the number of end consumers of these resources. Sadly, numbers don’t lie, whereby a very large number of the African population has failed to utilize the resources and their output services due to high prices. In Tanzania an entire solar power set costs at least 100,000 shillings equal to 44 US dollars, in Nigeria it costs at least 62.8 US dollars and in Botswana at least 60 US dollars. The same goes for every other African country, the prices as seen are too high considering the average gross domestic product per capita of Africa is around 200 US dollars per month, of which is clearly not enough for an individual to provide basic needs for his/her family and still be able to afford solar power or bioenergy let alone pay for the water bill. These prices are higher for small biogas plants reaching around 1500 US dollars for a single cooking stove house hold. The social welfare of the African people will surely be improved if the price of the renewable natural resource output services is decreased to an affordable sum. Not only will this improve living conditions, but also entrepreneurs involved in the renewable natural resource business will acquire more customers and a high demand, resulting in bigger profits thus bringing a positive impact on the economy at both country and continental level. Integrating management of renewable natural resource by involving local communities in the management and conservation of the resources. Management is an important role in ensuring sustainability of the use of renewable natural resources, whereas in Africa, management is still a major problem to most governments. Keeping the exploitation of renewable natural resources in check and in balance is a pivotal move in ensuring sustainable use. And in order for this to happen, the responsibility of management and conservation of these resources should not only involve the top government authority, rather this systematic management should also directly involve local communities. Whereby, the primary task of these communities will be to develop the rules of use or limiting the use that any individual person or family is allowed to make of the common renewable natural resource, and all this will be in compliance with rules and policies established by the main government. According to Siddig Salih; Managing renewable natural capital in Africa, “it is widely accepted that local collective action in Africa is not only administratively efficient, but it requires fewer financial resources than either privatisation or government regulation”. But regardless of this process being less expensive, the lack of financial support of most local African communities is a challenge for this strategy, thus the central government in cooperation with other donors should be involved in sharing these costs. S. Salih further states, “the lack of financial and technical support to sustain proper management of natural assets in sub-Saharan Africa is beyond the capacity of local communities. If the proposed strategy is to succeed, financial and technical responsibilities will have to be shared in the short medium run”, in this case between renewable natural energy service providers, special government entities and the international financial and donor communities. Introducing renewable natural resources as a field of study and a compulsory part of the educational curriculum. Especially in high schools and higher learning institutions. As a part of expanding the platform for exploitation of renewable natural resources, it is vital for African governments to include renewable natural resource energy in their curriculums. Skills development at the college and university level will help produce professionals competent in this field, who will play a key role in innovating better ways of exploitation and use of these natural resources for both social and economical welfare. A. Nistor et al, Introducing new STEM topics in the curriculum (2016) explains that, “fast advancing societal changes require flexible education systems, ready to equip students with the skills and competencies needed to respond to them. Projects in science education tend to be quick in picking up these trends and are already producing materials and activities aimed at introducing new scientific thought in the classroom”. The authors further states that, “by contextualizing scientific thinking, projects have the possibility of addressing larger societal challenges”. Once we obtain professionals who will be able to work profitably in this field, sustainable use of these resources will surely be a success. Promotion of technological innovations and inventions related to exploitation of renewable natural resources. Every nation in the world that is both socially and economically developed, has a technological platform that is constantly undergoing advancement. Likewise, sustainable exploitation of renewable natural resources highly depends on technological advancement and innovation. This advancement should meet the demand at a continental level. Various new technology is being invented around the globe and used in harnessing of renewable natural resources, including geothermal energy. Whereas in Africa, despite possessing a number of hot springs and geysers like kataga in Kampala, baths in south Africa, dallol in Ethiopia and many others across the continent, we still lack the technology capable of harnessing this power. Not only that, but technological advancement has led to the innovation of water systems, advancing them into multitask capabilities with small sizes, able to purify water and pump it into domestic house holds or public areas. This kind of technology is highly required in rural and some urban parts of African countries. Applying this kind of technology will promote diversified use of resources leading to better social and economic welfare across the continent. Therefore, it should be a primary objective for African leaders to promote the sustainable use of renewable natural resources, as it is a source of energy and an important need for the daily livelihood of the African people. Despite the challenges faced by renewable natural resources including dependency on weather, especially for solar power and wind, these resources still occur abundantly across the continent and thus making them easily attainable. Plus, education should be provided starting from the community level on conserving these natural resources from pollution especially water sources. Safely kept resources promote better exploitation which in turn create an environment for better social and economic welfare

Thread starter JonesLuba
Start date Sep 30, 2021

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SoC01 Renewable Energy: A remedy to socioeconomic affliction

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