What will be covered?
- To introduce the issue of energy access in rural areas and the importance of energy for the achievement of the MDGs.
- To outline the basic energy needs in rural areas and some of the barriers preventing increased energy access to rural populations.
- To provide some examples of policy instruments for improving energy services in rural areas.
- To outline business models and private sector participation schemes for increasing access to energy in rural areas.
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