adminThe Herald, 13 September 1996
A PROGRAMME spanning over nine years to promote large-scale use of renewable energy worldwide was tabled at a meeting of the international organising committee of the world solar summit on Wednesday.
The programme, seeking global co-operation, will set specific targets to be met by different governments in efforts to improve the quality of life of most of the world’s poor.
It is estimated that more than 2 billion people in developing countries have no access to electricity and because their governments cannot afford to connect them to the national electricity grid, and solar energy is thus perceived as a practical alternative.
The success of the World Solar Programme to be commissioned at next week’s heads of State and Government Summit in Harare, hinges, to a large extent on the political will of individual governments.
“The WSP will evolve over the decade 1996-2005 through the development and implementation of high priority national, regional and global projects under the political leadership and guidance of the World Solar Commission,” says the draft document.
The World Solar Commission, which meets tomorrow ahead of the summit which begins on Monday, is chaired by Zimbabwean President Mugabe.
Priority projects would be identified by governments at national level while experts and inter-ministerial consultants would decide on regional projects.
Projects of universal nature would be implemented in line with recommendations of the regional inter-ministerial and high level expert consultations.
The document emphasises the importance of exploring new financing opportunities and the need to attract private capital to supplement the inadequate public resources.
However, the details of how the programme would be implemented would be finalised and announced after the document has been launched.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular is endowed with sunlight which is a good source of renewable energy. Considerable strides have been made towards harnessing this source of energy in order to light up homes and industries, but more still needs to be done.
Fully harnessing renewable energy will not only light up homesteads, but it will ensure that our industry, agriculture included will be operating at maximum capacity. This will increase products and services exported, which will earn the country the much needed foreign currency.
Fully harnessing renewable energy also puts countries on a competitive advantage as they will be inter- and intra-connected.
Renewable energy is very cheap to use in remote areas where there is no electricity from the national grid.
The involvement of governments in the implementation of this programme is of paramount importance.
Online Reporter