Increasing access to energy services in rural areas - REEEP ...

MODULE 10: INCREASING ACCESS TO ENERGY SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS
page 10.3
2. INTRODUCTION
As the world finds itself at the beginning of a modern 21st century, for poor people
in developing countries, a host of developmental and environmental problems
still remain. In 2002, 10 years after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit and the adoption
of Agenda 21, 1 the “Rio Declaration on Environment and Development”, by
more than 178 Governments, it was recognized that we are still far from ending
the economic and environmental marginalization that afflicts billions of people.
Despite the prosperity of the 1990s, the divide between rich and poor is widening
in many countries, undermining social and economic stability. 2
Even the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in
2002 is widely thought not to have achieved many of its aims, possibly because
its objectives were quite far reaching. Specifically in the energy field, a Declaration
for the International Conference for Renewable Energies 3
at the recent Bonn
Renewables 2004 Conference concluded:
“The WSSD was not successful in bringing the world closer to achieving the
goals of poverty eradication, increasing gender equity, providing all people
with clean and affordable energy services or avoiding dangerous climate
change. This failure was a tremendous let-down to billions of people. The
Bonn Conference offers a second chance to provide energy services to those
people without and to begin to set the world on a pathway to avoid catastrophic
climate change. This chance must not be wasted.” 4
An assessment of the current state of the world indicates that neither environment
nor development has fared well. While awareness of environmental issues
has increased and remarkable progress can be cited in niches such as wind power,
nearly all global environmental indicators continue to be headed in the wrong
direction. In particular, many social issues have advanced slowly, with a six-fold
increase in deaths from HIV/AIDS and some 14,000-30,000 people continuing to
die each day from water-borne diseases. 5
1
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations
of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human
impacts on the environment.
2
Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch President, 2002.
3
a common position of CURES (Citizens United for Renewable Energy and Sustainability), a network
of NGOs created to monitor the energy-related international processes in the follow-up of the
Johannesburg Summit.
4
CURES, THE FUTURE IS RENEWABLE – Declaration for the International Conference for Renewable
Energies (Renewables 2004), 2004.
5
Gary Gardner, State of the World 2002 (Worldwatch) – Chapter 1: The Challenge for Johannesburg:
Creating a More Secure World, February 2002, ISBN: 0-393-32279-3.