In Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, a majority of residents lack the opportunities to rebuild their future beyond shelter and food rations provided by humanitarian agencies.
Innocent Tshilombo, who has lived in Kakuma since he fled violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 13 years ago, says restrictions on movement under the host country’s old refugee policy have cut them off from jobs and education outside their camps.
“Having lived in the camp since 2009, I know the pain points in this community, including the fact that refugees have not been allowed to work or venture out of the camps to do business,” says Mr Tshilombo, the founder and managing director of Kakuma Ventures, a social start-up that is connecting camp residents to low-cost solar-powered Wi-Fi hubs.
Kenya has since enacted the Refugee Act, which came into force in February this year, relaxing the restrictions on movement.
But with integration expected to be slow and jobs hard to come by even for the host country’s citizens, thousands of refugees will continue to be cut off from opportunities.
Mr Tshilombo believes the solution lies in bridging the digital divide to enable refugees to access education, skills and jobs available anywhere in the world from their camps.
His company has in the past two years distributed solar kits to 1,700 people in Kakuma so that they can charge their mobile phones or computers and access the internet while significantly reducing their use of high-carbon fuels like kerosene and charcoal for lighting, heating and cooking.
On average 250 people connect to its Wi-Fi hotspots across the camp at any given time.
“We want to create a virtual camp where people are able to access opportunities from wherever they are. With digital infrastructure, there are no boundaries. We have realised that many of the people accessing the internet through our services are able to learn and develop new skills, work and earn and do business,” says Mr Tshilombo.
The start-up has set targets to expand its solar-powered Wi-Fi hubs to reach more of the 180,000 residents of the camp, which hosts refugees from Somalia, South Sudan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
Kakuma Ventures’ efforts to transform refugee livelihoods has also won it global recognition, with the UK-based sustainable energy solutions charity Ashden naming it among the six winners of its international climate awards from developing countries this year.
It was also one of the two Kenyan winners of the Ashden Awards, which recognise the world's most innovative initiatives implementing clean and accessible energy solutions.
SokoFresh, the other Kenyan startup to receive a prize at last Thursday’s awards ceremony in Nairobi, is a logistics company that helps farmers reduce post-harvest losses through solar-powered cold storage and market linkages.
Harriet Lamb, the CEO of Ashden, says they settled on Kenya as host of this year’s Ashden Awards — the first outside the UK — to highlight the country’s growing status as a clean energy innovation hub as well as focus the world’s attention to the need for increased support for climate solutions on the continent ahead of the start of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC), popular as COP27, in Egypt next week.
Kenya has produced about 10 percent of the 240 winners of the awards — the most in Africa – which comes with a cash prize of up to £25,000 (about Sh3.49 million) and endorsements to impact investors and donors looking to support social start-ups with the potential to scale up their enterprises.
“Our winners and runners up show how the continent is a hotbed of innovation demonstrating the resilience and ingenuity of those most at risk from climate change. They also show that clean energy has the potential to create jobs - 14 million in Africa by 2030 - and boost livelihoods. Green energy is a must,” says Ms Lamb.
“We will be showcasing their inspiring stories at the crucial COP27 climate talks in Egypt, where global leaders should sit up, take notice and provide adequate funding to scale up efforts to deliver a future in which no one is left behind.”
The countdown to this year’s climate conference in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh has been dominated by criticism of rich countries failing to fulfil their promise at the 2021 conference in Glasgow, including the commitment to provide $100 billion annually to enable developing countries adapt to the dangers brought by climate change.
The UN’s World Food Programme said a devastating drought in the Horn of Africa – the region’s worst in 40 years – had driven more than 20 million people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the brink of starvation by September.
In Kenya alone, 4.1 million people are reported to be food insecure and three million people cannot access enough water for drinking and cooking.
An estimated 600 million people in Africa unconnected to the national electricity grids continue to rely on kerosene, diesel generators and wood fuel for their cooking, lighting and heating needs, putting them at risk of life-threatening respiratory diseases.
A coalition of more than 40 organisations under the ‘Power Up’ campaign, including Ashden, has stepped up calls for increased investments in green, low-cost energy to save lives and unlock opportunities for the continent’s off-grid population.
“Power Up is calling for the COP/UNFCCC process to deliver greatly increased climate funding, with a large amount of it supporting the spread of sustainable, affordable energy to those facing climate catastrophe," Says Ms Lamb.
"The focus in the past conferences has been on what shouldn’t be done like ‘phase out coal’. We want to also hear about what needs to be done. We want priority given to access to clean energy and the rich countries to put the billions on the table. This is the message we are taking to Egypt.”
She argues that governments, investors and donors need to view clean energy innovations through a wider lens, citing independent studies that show that they can be a catalyst to higher incomes and economic development, in addition to their climate adaptation benefits.
A 2020 study of the pay-as-you-go solar business models by the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organisation promoting use of sustainable energy, found that owners of solar home systems increased their incomes, on average, by up to $35 per month and their children spent more time doing homework.
Energy access was also found to enable people in rural areas to set up small businesses such as mobile charging business, power a computer for digital business or power a refrigerator to store cold food.
