Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

Energy exclusion is prevalent throughout Africa, leading to a myriad of energy access projects, technologies, interventions and approaches being explored to address a phenomenon affecting over half the continent’s predominantly rural population. This is exhibited in a recent EU-funded energy access project involving partners, researchers and communities working across many African countries employing various approaches. In this paper, we unfold the employment of two divergent approaches, requirements elicitation and community-based co-design, in an attempt to determine and advance green energy inclusion and innovative use in a low-income, off-grid rural Namibian community. Thereafter, we reflect on the use of each approach, highlighting the need for an elevated and provocative approach that enables innovative and unorthodox energy inclusion permitting energy access and productive use in rural African communities.

Abstract

Energy exclusion is prevalent throughout Africa, leading to a myriad of energyaccess projects, technologies, interventions and approaches being explored to address a phenomenon affecting over half the continent’s predominantly rural population. This is exhibited in a recent EU-funded energy access project involving partners, researchers and communities working across many African countries employing various approaches. In this paper, we unfold the employment of two divergent approaches, requirements elicitation and community-based co-design, in an attempt to determine and advance green energy inclusion and innovative use in a low-income, off-grid rural Namibian community. Thereafter, we reflect on the use of each approach, highlighting the need for an elevated and provocative approach that enables innovative and unorthodox energy inclusion permitting energy access and productive use in rural African communities.

Abstract

This paper, contributing to decolonial design and futuring practice, promotes and explores the recovery of lost futures of the past. Through a series of sessions in a rural indigenous community in Southern Africa, we employ the Chameleon Innovation game as a participatory and community-based ideation method to co-design alternative future innovations and possibilities. The game, as an avenue through which participants accentuate lost indigenous cultural practices from the past, extends an Afrocentric indigenous orientation and past trajectory, enabling participants to actively engage these practices and situate alternative futures. This widens the spectrum within which futures and technologies are co-designed, enabling community participants to actively conceptualise alternative, yet situated, innovations in rural indigenous contexts.

Executive summary

This paper examines the transition to electric mobility (e-mobility) in Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city, focusing on the enablers, progress, barriers, and impacts of e-mobility initiatives in a secondary African city. In alignment with Kenya’s commitment to a green economy, Kisumu has emerged as a key site for experimenting and implementing e-mobility solutions aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions while addressing critical transportation and energy challenges. These interventions are essential in the city’s transition towards sustainable urban mobility. The study evaluates key projects which have introduced electric motorcycles and off-grid solar-powered charging hubs in urban and peri-urban regions. The overall goal of these initiatives is to mitigate the adverse environmental footprints of fossil-based vehicles while providing socioeconomic benefits to local operators such as cost reductions and job creation. Using a mixed-method approach of systematic literature review, data collection, and case study evaluations, the paper outlines the progress of e-mobility initiatives in Kisumu highlighting successes, challenges and impacts. It reveals that e-mobility has made some contribution to emissions reductions and financial gains for boda operators while significant hurdles include inadequate infrastructure, high upfront costs, and regulatory shortfalls. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to enable the scale-up of e-mobility initiatives in Kisumu, offering important lessons for secondary cities across sub-Saharan Africa that aspire to integrate e-mobility in their sustainable urban development efforts.