Senegalese-American singer Akon |
Celebrities often lend their brand to a cause or undertake pet
projects, but for Senegalese-American singer Akon, the issue of improving
access to energy is personal and has been his main focus for the past two
years.
Akon, who spent part of his
childhood living in Senegal without access to electricity, launched Akon
Lighting Africa, an initiative to bring solar power to the continent, about a
year ago.
“There’s always been so many
initiatives in Africa, so much money raised in Africa, but there’s never no results
and it got to the point where you get tired of it,” he told Devex in a recent
interview. “I took it more personal than anything and I wanted to be in a
position to where if I move forward on something I wanted to actually see it
materialize.”
The initiative primarily
targets rural communities that are not connected to the grid and is working to
find creative financing financing arrangements and bring costs down to make the
electricity affordable
An installation of solar energy panels in Kenya. Akon Lighting
Africa
is an initiative that brings solar power to the
continent.
|
Designed to promote inclusive and sustainable growth, the
initiative focuses first on providing solar power through microgrid systems to
rural communities, which are often far from existing grids.
Akon and his partners didn’t
come up with the business model — government-subsidized installation with
commercial entities taking on the additional risk and collecting the payments —
on their own. It’s a model that has been tested by the World
Bank, said Samba Bathily, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Akon Lighting
Africa.
In partnership with solar
panel manufacturers and others, Akon Lighting Africa has secured a roughly $1
billion credit line that allows it to help broker longer-term financing for
governments that may not be able to pay for a certain project in one budget
cycle.
Governments use the loans to
finance public utilities like street lights and to subsidize the installation
of community solar kits. But costs aren’t borne by government alone —
households connected to the community microgrid prepay for their electricity
through a scratch card, similar to how cellphone credit is sold, until they own
the the product outright.
Traditional energy sources
like candles and kerosene are still cheaper, Akon Lighting Africa co-founder
Thione Niang acknowledged. But the political activist and consultant said the
initiative is working to reduce prices further — negotiating with suppliers,
forming partnerships such as the one it has with Columbia University, and
boosting economies of scale.
“The bottom line,” Niang
said, “is [to] get people away from aid.”
Early progress
It’s been a busy year for
Akon Lighting Africa.
Last week it announced it
would give $200,000 to support the new Western African Energy Leaders Group, a
platform for West African political and business leaders to work together to
improve energy access. In May, it launched a solar academy to train African
entrepreneurs, engineers and technicians in the field of solar energy.
Further, the initiative
reached 11 countries in its first year and has provided electricity to more
than a million Africans. That may seem like a large number, but with more than
600 million Africans lacking access, it’s only a small step.
That seems to be something
that is often on the minds of Akon and his business partners Bathily and Niang.
It is fueling their plans to expand quickly and broaden their reach to 48
African countries by 2020.
The initiative, which was in
the works for at least a year before its launch, meant that Akon put music on
the backburner as he focused on studying the challenges and opportunities. The
result: a realization that not only is there a great need, but that the market
was huge and there was limited competition, he said.
The response thus far has
been positive. The initiative has received “amazing feedback” and many people
want to be a part of it to understand how it was able to get things done so
quickly, Akon said.
“The main answer is you have
to be able to understand Africa,” he said. Spending a lot of time in Africa and
involving as many Africans as possible is critical, the singer added, because
it brings a greater understanding of how things work, which makes working in
each particular context a smoother process.
That’s not the only thing
that has helped.
Akon is quick to admit that
his celebrity has helped open a lot of doors. His name, and thus stamp of
approval, gave partners and governments a sense of security — it created
opportunities to meet with presidents and government ministers and business
owners alike, he said
What’s next
With more than a year of
work behind them, the partners are stepping up on the international stage and
increasingly engaging with others, including potential partners, working on
sustainable energy access.
They were at the U.N.
Sustainable Energy for All forum and have had conversations with many of the
donors, trying to share the details of what they are doing, the importance of
reaching rural populations, and what sort of innovative financing opportunities
may be possible.
They’ve had positive
conversations with Power Africa, Niang said, but believe that action needs to
be taken to combine off-grid solutions that can create jobs, improve schools,
health clinics and the economy in the near term.
Big power projects — be they
new plants or dams — can take many years to get up and running, and there are
questions about how much of that new generation will reach rural communities or
connect new customers to the grid.
“Big infrastructure projects
are good in the long term, but now we should do both,” Niang said. “Why are we
going to wait to give basic energy to 60 percent of the population?”
As large-scale capacity
comes online they can feed into the systems that companies and initiatives like
Akon Lighting Africa are helping to build.
That all relies on proving
the business model. The initiative took substantial losses on early projects,
in part due to investments in training African staff to install and maintain
the systems. But the partners say they are confident. They are working to make
the case in part through the ecosystem fund they set up — based on a cluster of
10 countries where results are tracked — to bring private equity investors into
the business, Niang said.
The Akon Lighting Africa
initiative is looking to expand into 48 countries by 2020 and he plans to
launch other initiatives tackling agriculture, infrastructure and education in
the coming years. Akon said he recognizes that these are ambitious goals but he
believes in aiming high and bringing on partners to help do the work.
“No matter who you have to
bring in, regardless of politics [and] policies, we just want to be able to
bring solutions to Africa without the extra red tape,” he said.
And for those concerned
about his other career, Akon said he’ll continue to record and perform, because
music is what enables all of this work.
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