Power Kick for Africa

It feels as though the world closed ranks in June, united by the universal love for football. The World Future Council was in the middle of it, with the ‘Power Kick for Africa’ project keeping many of the staff on their toes.

To promote the use of renewable energy in Africa, we organized a policy workshop in Ghana’s capital Accra. Also, a World Cup public viewing powered by solar energy was organized in the non-electrified small town of Oboadaka, two hours from Accra.

Councillor Hafsat Abiola from Nigeria kindly chaired the workshop, which brought together political decision-makers as well as representatives from business and civil society from South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cape Verde to discuss policies, technologies and financial mechanisms for the advancement of renewable energy use in Africa.

They all got first-hand experience of the joy that access to electricity can bring when they travelled to Oboadaka to watch the pivotal Football World Cup group game of Ghana against Germany with the local people.

Ghana TV, the English/Haussa service of Deutsche Welle radio, Ghana’s Business and Financial Times (amongst others) reported about ‘Power Kick for Africa,’ disseminating the WFC’s message that harvesting renewable energy power is key to a sustainable development in Africa. All in all, ‘Power Kick for Africa’ has proven to be an extremely rewarding endeavour – and a sustainable one also, since the installed solar system is now used to power the town’s health clinic. Click here for an appealing video we’ve compiled on Power Kick for Africa. The WFC proposal for an international renewable energy policy fund can be found here.

The knowledge exchange and cooperation of the workshop participants will also continue under the umbrella of the African Renewable Energy Alliance (AREA) that the WFC helped to found in October 2009.