The Commonwealth Secretariat hosted the launch of UNCTAD’s The Least Developed Countries Report 2017: Transformational Energy Access yesterday at Marlborough House, London.
The Commonwealth Secretariat hosted the launch of UNCTAD’s The Least Developed Countries Report 2017: Transformational Energy Access yesterday at Marlborough House, London.
The report highlights how access to adequate, reliable and affordable sources of modern energy is essential if the world’s poorest nations are to escape the poverty trap.
Deputy Secretary General Josephine Ojiambo opened the event and said: “With 13 Commonwealth countries included on this latest report, the need for our support, guidance and advice is critical to ensure their economic development.”
UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said: “The productive use of energy is what turns access into economic development, and what ensures that investments in electricity infrastructure are economically viable. But that means looking beyond satisfying households basic needs to achieving transformational energy access – satisfying producers' needs for adequate, reliable and affordable energy.”
According to the report, the world’s 47 least developed countries (LDCs) are falling far behind the rest of the developing world in terms of getting power to homes and businesses. The 13 Commonwealth countries on the list are Bangladesh, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Tanzania, Vanuatu and Zambia. Vanuatu is likely to graduate by 2020.
LDC status is defined by three factors, namely extreme poverty, limited human resources and massive economic vulnerability. That definition effectively gives members claim to being the poorest nations in the world. However, since the category was created in 1971, only five countries have ever graduated from it – Botswana, Cape Verde, Maldives, Samoa and Equatorial Guinea.
The report also states that renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, could have a revolutionary effect in rural areas, home to 82 per cent of those without power in LDCs, and help to overcome the historical obstacles to rural electrification. However, non-hydro renewable energy in these countries has so far come mostly from small-scale technologies, such as solar lanterns and stand-alone home systems. While these have brought some progress, they fall short of the game-changing access to power that LDCs need to transform their economies.
