Families of the little village
of Damo in the Moamba District, some 90 kilometers away from the capital of
Mozambique, remember the times when firewood and kerosene lamps were the only
sources of light to illuminate the interior of their homes. With World Bank
support to the Government of Mozambique’s Energy Development and Access Project
(EDAP), life in this and many other villages across the country have changed
dramatically in recent years.“My life is not the same
anymore,” said Laura Chissico, a resident of Moamba district who recalls how
life has changed for better. “Now that we have electricity, we have been able
to earn 5,000 to 7,000 MTs (about $60 to $100) a month from the sale of
‘badjias’ and other cookies. We even started to use a conventional oven that
allowed us to diversify our products and expand the business.”As many other residents in
Moamba and other districts impacted by the project─including those in the
provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Manica, and Inhambane─Laura used “xiphefo,”
a homemade unreliable kerosene lamp, as the main source of light, rendering
almost impossible any public or commercial activity at night in the district.
With investments in new distribution lines, installation of transformers as
well as new connections, her life, and those of many other rural residents
across the country, has turned around completely.José Filimone, a wood artisan
in the Maputo province, who owns a small business with over 10 workers, is
another satisfied beneficiary who tells us how his business is thriving these
days thanks to electricity. “We are now using electric tools, which means
working faster and getting better finishing quality, something that hardly ever
happened before,” he recalls visibly happy. “We have bigger orders today, and
our lives improved significantly.”
The World Bank is currently in
the second phase of a $120 million program called Energy Development and Access
Project aimed at improving access to electricity in Mozambique. As part of this
project, which is about to close, 42,500 new clients from peri-urban
settlements have been added to the network. Investments under the project
include the expansion of existing networks in fast-growing areas as well as in
large cities, including over 400 kilometers of new transmission and
distribution lines. Other areas benefiting from World Bank support are the
improvements of institutional and regulatory capacity in the energy sector, as
well as efforts to extend access to energy in rural areas through off-grid
renewable solutions such as photovoltaic solar panels installed in the
provinces of Inhambane, Manica, Cabo Delgado, and Niassa, connecting over 500 health
centers and 300 schools.
In Mozambique, poverty is
concentrated in rural areas. The authorities established that accelerating and
expanding access to rural electricity is key in fighting poverty. As part of
this thrust, Mozambique is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the
highest rate of new connections, averaging 120,000 new connections per year
over the past five years. The authorities’ energy-mix plan is to maximize hydropower
potential, especially through the Cahora Bassa dam as the primary source of
electrification while also investing in alternative sources of energy. To that
end, the government approved recently the Renewable Energy Strategy which seeks
to boost energy access to rural areas.Solar power offers great
potential for Mozambique and remains largely untapped in the country. The
authorities have recently set forth their medium term energy-mix plan which
includes 55% of renewables by 2030. The World Bank has also provided support
for planning, policy, and institutional development of Mozambique’s power
sector. This includes assisting in the elaboration of the National Rural
Electrification Strategy and investment programs. In addition, the Bank is also
working in coordination with the government’s Energy Fund (FUNAE) in promoting
the use and distribution of cooking stoves, in an initiative aimed at, among
other things, bringing down pressure on wood fuels, reducing deforestation, as
well as protecting women and children against carbon monoxide and volatile
particles emanating from coal, which is widely used for cooking throughout
Mozambique.
0 comentários:
Post a Comment