There is only one government funded secondary school located in each of the eleven wards of the Kibaha town region. This means students travel up to six kilometers to get to and from school every morning. In Pangani (the most remote of the wards), students can travel up to 18 kilometers, usually by bicycle or hitch-hiking, to get the benefit of an education.

It is not just the students but the teachers too that face challenges. Attracting and retaining teachers is a real challenge for rural communities. The local government provides a few small homes for teachers as an incentive; however, as one Head Mistress told me “nobody wants to live in them without electricity”. Therefore, most teachers choose to rent rooms closer to the town centre where they can recharge their cell phones, watch television or listen to the radio, and read after dark.

Things I took for granted for my own education, like access to science and computer labs and the knowledge tools those facilities provided, are luxuries only available at the privately funded schools. Most public school students in Tanzania study biology and chemistry without microscopes, Bunsen burners, and the hands-on aspect that made science fun. Instead, they learn using an “alternative to practical” approach studying only pictures in books.

With no power for computers or photocopying equipment, hand outs (including paper exams) are limited due to the high cost and travel distance to the local printers. With annual revenues of TSHS 10,000,000 (US $ 6500-7000), over a third goes to print material for tests. The rest of the budget is usually earmarked by the government for books, not leaving much for technology expansion, meals, or anything else.

The government of Tanzania recently implemented a directive mandating that each school in the country provide a mid-morning meal for all of its students. The reality though is that the schools cannot afford to feed its students and the parents cannot provide the funds to subsidize the cost. A few of the teachers confessed to me that the majority of the kids in their school go the entire day without a proper meal. In the schools where a daytime meal is provided, cooking is done over an open flame using wood for fuel (which is also requested from the students/parents, therefore adding the burden of carrying wood to the long walk) keeping a chosen group of students out of class for an entire morning helping to cook the ugi (a local porridge made from fortified millet).

With the children facing no food, difficulty concentrating (or even staying awake), no hand outs, and very few text books, you would assume the success of the students would be limited. However, every Head Master and Mistress that I met boasted about the number of students graduating to the next level of study. “These kids are so eager to learn” one teacher told me “we do the best we can for them with the tools we have been given”.

This may sound hopeful for the 98% of rural Tanzanians that do not have access to the electricity grid, relying instead on a combination of biomass, candles, and kerosene for lighting but grid expansion to many of these communities has no chance of becoming feasible in the near future. With that in mind, Mrindoko also acknowledged that “renewable sources of energy may be more cost-effective and reliable options especially in rural areas”.

This statement exemplifies the government’s commitment to a new electrification policy. Now the challenge for Tanzania is how to put this policy into action. The past few months have seen the announcement of several new funding mechanisms intended to incentivize various stakeholders, mainly private business, to create new and innovative programs to help Tanzania achieve these goals.

One such fund was introduced by UK-Aid this week. REACT (Rural Energies and Adaptation to Climate Technologies) a new funding window from African Enterprise Challenge Fund, targets the private sector by offering to invest 250,000 to $1.5 million US in for -profit businesses providing low cost clean energy solutions for the rural poor. The only caveat being a dollar for dollar matching commitment, which is quite high for most small to medium sized entrepreneurs to meet. Therefore, it is difficult for them to see their business expand quickly enough to repay the ‘repayable grant’ in the required six year time frame. The fund does allow for investors and financial service providers such as E+CO to apply and channel the funds down the supply chain. Perhaps it may incentivize local Micro-Finance Companies to create a loan scheme specifically designed for acquiring energy technologies.

For smaller scale organizations which cannot meet REACT’s required matching commitment but whose programs need supplemental funding, the Governments of Austria and Finland have teamed up to launch the second round of the Energy & Environment Partnership Programme (‘EEP’). EEP aims to increase access to sustainable energy services derived from renewable energy sources with special attention given to solutions for rural areas. Encouraging partnerships at all levels, EEP’s approach will grant up to 200,000 Euros to private, public, and non-governmental organizations, universities and other researchers. These partners may be international or locally based but working together to develop programs that will be rolled out in East Africa.

Also announced last week was the Swedish Government allotment of 44 Billion Tshs ($29M US) over five years to the Government of Tanzania’s Rural Energy Agency to improve electricity access to the rural population. That is in addition to the existing funding available from the REA’s Rural Energy Fund earmarked for independent projects which either will expand generation capacity or deliver off grid electricity solutions.

These funds bring promise, though Bashir Mrindoko also added that “…100,000 new connections per annum would mean only 21 per cent electrification by 2030…achieving the 2033 goal would require an annual 485,000 connections from this year.” Also, he indicated that “reaching that target would call for an injection of an estimated US$20 billion”. This is a much bigger commitment than these funds alone can achieve but that is the point. The fund’s purpose is to invest in a variety of simultaneous multiple actions, each one designed to scale up as the business and program grows.

The technologies are here. The last few decades have seen a mixture of generation methods introduced, from small hydro power generation, to solar and wind, to LPG, biomass gasification, and cogeneration. As for the many entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas which need a decent infusion of capital to take it to the next step, the investors are starting to step up and make funds available so targets may be achieved.

The hospital room I was sitting in was well light and air conditioned. My wife was hooked up to a myriad of electrical devices measuring everything from her blood pressure to the baby’s heart rate. The delivery room was sterile and it had a private bathroom. Yet only a few days earlier I had been talking with my colleague, Joanne, about a similar situation in Tanzania. In many parts of Tanzania, expectant mothers who go into labour between dusk and dawn and who are able to reach a medical clinic, must pay for the kerosene used to fuel the kerosene lamps at the clinic, in order to provide some form of lighting for the medical practitioner to deliver the baby.

Now, my experience of child birth is limited, but I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to suggest that child birth is a hard and stressful process for both mother and child, even in the most ideal of circumstances. Consider then the additional stress and potentially negative health implications if the delivery occurs in a poorly light, smoky and most likely hot and humid room. Yet this scenario is a common occurrence in many parts of Tanzania.

e4e wants to change this scenario. It will undoubtedly take time, and it can’t be done alone. But e4e is starting with a project that is working with local government to install solar lighting and solar power to medical clinics, high schools and orphanages in parts of the country. This should allow mothers to give birth in well light, smoke free rooms and children to undertake evening study. With hard work and effort, our worlds don’t need to be so far apart.