Appeal of the Network

A you aware of that the desert extends about half a million hectares per month? Climatic changes are dept to it, among others initiated through the cutting of the woods. Wood is required as feed. In this context the question "Can the usage of solar energy improve the standart of living of the Africans?" merely theoretical.

Why Solar energy?

We believe the following basic necessities have to be addressed first, before the African civil society could play any vital role in Africa's development process.

Cooking

Firewood is the main energy source for cooking in many African households.
Due to deforestation by man and nature, firewood is nowadays very expensive. Many families especially in the urban areas, whose incomes are weak, are in serious financial troubles. When I was in the village we used to gather firewood just some few hundred meters outside the village. Today children and women have to walk several kilometres to gather firewood. So for the rural population too, getting firewood is time- consuming.
So the time and money we invest on collecting or buying firewood, could be used for something else e.g. education.

Lighting and electricity

The vast majority of the rural population have no access to electricity. They therefore depend on candles and kerosene lamps for lighting. Even most of them couldn't afford this regularly. Therefore, their usage of electrical equipments is limited. As there is no demand for it, their inventory capacity remains unexploited. So with solar lamps and solar current, our people will be able to learn and work in the night, make inventions and boost up our productivity.

Industrialisation

With the usage of solar energy, Africa could now take up research on the sterling engine, develop it and use it in the industrialisation process. When the efficiency of the sterling engine matches that of the burn-engine, then Africa could be quickly industrialised.
Imagine a mechanised farming in Africa, imagine we can process and conserve food, then, Africa will have food self-sufficiency, to get to that level is Africa's immediate task.

Health

Imagine our hospitals and clinics would have hot water constantly for disinfection purposes, would have refrigerators and cool rooms for proper storage of medicines, how healthy our women will be, if saved from the hazardous smoke of firewood.

Economic

Any of the points mentioned above, when achieved, would have a great impact on the income of the people.
Why buy expensive organic stuff when we can meet our energy demands through renewable energy?

Problems like these could all be solved with the appropriate solar technology. And don't forget, renewable energy forms will bring peace to us.
For Africa to be able to make use of these potentials, a sensitisation process has to be started.
Therefore, the organisers of this conference hope to mark the start of a sensitisation campaign to strengthen the efforts of those already on the ground.

We expect the participants to this conference to come from the following groups, communities or initiatives:

• Workers and experts of development agencies who have or are about to initiate solar projects in Africa. Their participation will provide the chance for exchange among the different groups.
  Secondly, it may be necessary for these participants to make an evaluation report of their work, through which others could learn something.
• Technicians, scientists, inventors, environmentalists, students and politicians. This group shall discuss subjects like, Kyoto protocol, technology transfer and exchange, environmental funds and how Africa could benefit from these funds.
• We expect the majority of the participants coming from the public to be Africans living and around Duesseldorf. Your knowledge might be valuable for analysing and evaluating the projects and for judging if a particular concept is applicable in a particular country or area or not. So whether you are a solar expert already, interested in organising or acquiring skill training, or just interested in promoting solar energy usage, you are highly welcomed.
  We are staging some conference on the subject before September. Please get in touch with us for details.
  The pre-conferences are preparation for the main conference. Your participation could be of great use in the process of technology transfer and exchange.
  There will be exhibitions and presentations of solar utensils from different producers throughout the conference.
• The conference could be interesting for institutions like AA, BMZ, GTZ, etc. It may be possible to start a process in Africa as they did for china some two years ago. A campaign within the Agenda-21 process in African big cities like Dakar, Lagos, Accra, Kinshasa, Nairobi, etc. by organising trade-fare for solar products, this might be attractive for Africans as well as for the Germans. This could be followed by evaluation conferences, as it is always the case.
• Another goal of the conference is evaluation of solar projects of the past. We all know that some projects were successful and some weren't.
  Why so -, this question need be answered by Germans and Africans working closely together.
• Last but not the least, the conference is your contribution to resolving the global environmental problems.

Think about it, with this technology we can save the lives of our people and not only but to give them a fair chance to be able to contribute their quota to Africa's progress.

Think about it.

• Save our women from bronchial diseases
• Give our children a chance to learn
• Give better health to our people.
• Solar-technology-transfer and exchange to and with Africans