By Joshua Masinde
NAIROBI (IDN) – Productive use of energy holds the key to livelihood transformation in Africa’s rural areas. Small industries could improve their production processes and efficiency if they had better access to electricity and technologies.
Without electricity, rural micro-enterprises make do with labour intensive and time-consuming manual tools, and often pass up many opportunities for value addition or product diversification.
Satisfying the need for power of commercial enterprises presents an opportunity for private sector players such as JUMEME, a Tanzanian company that develops solar-powered mini-grids to connect businesses and households in remote areas.