ZimEnergy Group of organizations has been established as a response to the triple inter-related challenges in Zimbabwe and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa: energy, poverty and environmental crises. The image of a continent dark at night is familiar to visitors on the internet, and this darkness is reflected in households, health clinics, schools, urban as well as rural communities where Africans li
ve. The majority of households in sub-saharan Africa have no access to electricity. Widespread use of wood fuel and kerosene not only means deforestation and indoor pollution, but it also feeds into worsening the impact of climate change and ill-health. Lack of lighting at the household level also reduces productivity of family members who are forced to retire to bed as soon as the sun sets. In many clinics, pregnant mothers have to bring their own candles at delivery time, or else deliver at home; and in clinics, in the absence of light, it leads to high mortality and morbidity rates for the mothers and newborns. In schools, lack of lighting and electricity means limited learning opportunities, especially in the current internet age where access to computers has revolutionized access to information, knowledge, and skills-creation. Across African nations and regions, our carbon footprint may be comparably smaller to that in the richer world, but it is on the increase. Science has now confirmed that the impact of climate change will be far worse, appear earlier and more widespread in the poor nations of Africa. We are now experiencing more frequent and extended droughts, further exacerbating impacts on health, poverty and already strained environmental eco-systems. ZimEnergy Group of organizations seeks to co-create integrated and systemic solutions within, but not limited to, the energy-environment-poverty triangle.
