What youth must do for clean energy mix

Everyone eyes comfortable life, as relative as it is. Some link it to ease of accessing infrastructure such as energy sources. Finding the perfect grip of sustainable and clean energy is a rare gem in Kenya especially in the rural set-up.

In Kenya, rural set-ups, urban poor and informal settlements depend on fossil fuels. The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census report shows 55.1 percent of Kenyan households use firewood for cooking followed by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at 23.9 percent.

According to Africa Energy Outlook 2019, Kenya is one of the few countries to develop geothermal energy that by 2040 will account for almost 50 percent of Kenya’s power generation.

Solar power use is spreading across Kenya, especially in the rural areas. More than 200,000 homes in rural Kenya are powered by solar energy thanks to the rising private sector investment.

Kenya’s rich geothermal sources have not been harvested as expected as power demand keeps rising. Renewable energy is at our disposal and so implementation or exploiting the sources remains a key goal.

Affordability is one of the headaches for the masses who need power at home and in their small enterprises.

The high cost of connection and continual use is made worse by uneven deployment, poor communication that hurts decision making have pushed many into using potentially harmful sources of energy.

The growing demand for energy generated by the growing population has brought about a surge and uneven distribution, hence an unreliable power supply characterised by fluctuations and power outages.

VISION 2030

Under the least-cost power development plan, Kenya is focusing on development of geothermal and hydroelectric plans.

There is, however, little penetration of some other valuable renewable sources that would fill the gap in the uptake of clean energy sources to meet Kenya’s Vision 2030 goal of achieving double-digit economic growth.

Biogas has little to no uptake in Kenya's energy sector. Kenya Biogas Program reports that penetration of biogas systems in Kenya is low.

Since its inception in 1952 in Kenya as a system for waste management in the farms, it’s only about 23,000 households that are using this source of energy.

The technical demand for this source of energy is slightly above 2.3 million with an effective demand of only 10 percent of this.

There is an opportunity to explore this resource and deliver a clean environment for a safer tomorrow.

According to Clean Cooking Association of Kenya (CCAK), the kitchen has pushed us to find affordable yet dangerous sources of energy costing us about 21,500 deaths in Kenya due to health complications brought about by use of firewood and charcoal.

Innovation and expansion of renewable sources is vital to maintaining a sustainable level of energy and protecting our planet from climate change. Innovation of off-grid systems is a potential area that has several untapped joints.

Kenya is a youthful nation, but many of the youth lack jobs, contributing to the slow growth of the economy among other factors.

The youth should be cognizant of this and act accordingly.

Youth contribute to change by their involvement in pushing for the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure a smooth transition to clean energy, hence healthy nation.

SUSTAINABLE USE

The youth have the ability to grasp concepts and acquire skills faster than anybody else. Through creativity and innovation, they can create solutions and hence employment.

They can also be advocates of clean and reliable energy solutions wherever they are so that the campaign and goal and be embraced by many individuals and organisations.

With energy transition and the need to implement usage of clean sources of energy being an area of potential growth, the youth have got great opportunity to tap on for sustainable living and achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 and 13 by 2030.

Better yet, young leaders can be involved in the global decision making about sustainable energy use.

Olivia Auma Otieno, Programmes, Advocacy and Fundraising officer

• The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery estimates that 98 percent of people residing in emerging countries, including Kenya, lack access to multi-specialty surgical services.
• The commission further describes this access to the services as including timeliness, safety, affordability for patients and an adequate capacity by providers.
• This gap forms a good starting point for pursuing the implementation of a multi-specialty growth strategy by clinics and hospitals.

It is an inherent ambition for most healthcare facilities to, over time, increase their scope of services in order to serve a wider catchment population whilst providing a broader array of clinical services.

However, the conundrum that most healthcare managers grapple with is on how, where and what specific activities to pursue in order to actualize this desire in a cost effective and, ultimately, productive manner.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery estimates that 98 percent of people residing in emerging countries, including Kenya, lack access to multi-specialty surgical services.

The commission further describes this access to the services as including timeliness, safety, affordability for patients and an adequate capacity by providers. This gap forms a good starting point for pursuing the implementation of a multi-specialty growth strategy by clinics and hospitals.

It is important for healthcare managers to digest available datasets in order to elucidate the characteristics of the disease burden surrounding their health facilities. Such datasets are available both internally and externally.

Internally, records of disease profiles attended to in the facility will be of use; especially of cases that eventually required referral to another center due to non-existence of the needed clinical services.

Externally, the Kenya Health Information System is a freely available online database that contains information on disease burden by type and location in the country. Also, there are specialty-wise medical journal publications that bear extensive information on various disease burdens.

As an example, one may establish that a general outpatient clinic in a hospital setting saw many patients with backaches and of these, the MRIs done showed that most of the patients had spinal compressions but were not definitively attended to due to the unavailability of a neurosurgeon or an orthopedic surgeon specializing on the spine.

The next step would be to consider setting up a spine clinic running on specific days wherein patients presenting with such back problems can be booked into. At this stage, a consideration may be made to invite a visiting specialist doctor to run the clinic on those specified days.

It is worthwhile that during this introductory phase, patients are informed on the need to subscribe to a health insurance scheme so as to limit their need for out-of-pocket expenditure and increase the affordability of such highly-specialized care.

As these occur, the healthcare manager should be forecasting on the supportive services that are required along this specialty line and making plans for the accompanying capital and operational expenditure.

If these cases require surgical interventions, this planning should be around ancillary requirements such as the availability of surgical instruments and implants, staffing cadre, rehabilitative services such as physiotherapy and so on. It helps a great deal to involve input from a specialist in the particular field.

Whereas this example covers a surgical specialty, the same data - driven approach can be applied in all other facets of medical specialties to ensure that an iterative and productive growth approach is undertaken.

The writer is a healthcare leader and geospatial epidemiologist

• The High Court has dismissed a suit filed by minority owner of Bluebird Aviation who accused his partners of siphoning more than $1 billion (Sh108 billion) from the airline through tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.
• Justice Alfred Mabeya brought to an end the five-year court battle pitting Adan Abdi Yussuf against three other owners of the 29-year-old airline.
• The judgment came after the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) cleared three shareholders and executives of Bluebird — Hussein Farah, Unshur Mohamed and Mohamed Abdikadir — from financial malpractices after a nine-month investigation.

The High Court has dismissed a suit filed by minority owner of Bluebird Aviation who accused his partners of siphoning more than $1 billion (Sh108 billion) from the airline through tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.

Justice Alfred Mabeya brought to an end the five-year court battle pitting Adan Abdi Yussuf against three other owners of the 29-year-old airline.

The judgment came after the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) cleared three shareholders and executives of Bluebird — Hussein Farah, Unshur Mohamed and Mohamed Abdikadir — from financial malpractices after a nine-month investigation.

The investigation followed a criminal complaint from Mr Yussuf against his fellow shareholders, accusing them of fraudulently channelling massive funds out of the company as part of a money laundering scheme.

Justice Mabeya dismissed Mr Yusuf’s allegations, saying he failed to prove claims of fraudulent accounting, tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.

“In the present case, all that the plaintiff did was to make sweeping allegations without any backing by way of evidence. He only stated that he had carried out investigations and made discovery of the allegations he made,” said the judge.

“The documents that were produced were not authenticated to prove any of the allegations made against the defendants.”

Mr Yussuf, who claims to own 25 percent of the charter airline, argued that more $1 billion (about Sh108 billion) has been stolen and put in offshore accounts and investments in Western capitals after being transported physically out of the country without declaration. He said the three directors were using the airport passes granted for restricted areas in airports to move the billions.

The DCI dismissed the secret movement of cash at the airports, arguing its investigation and probe by Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) found no evidence of money laundering.

The Financial Reporting Centre through the DCI said it failed to detect breaches while tracking the flow of cash in and outside Blue Bird Aviation.

Mr Yussuf claimed that his partners were stashing proceeds from the airline in international banks under Amazon International FZE. But Justice Mabeya said his partners had sufficiently showed that their relationship with Amazon was purely commercial.

“That the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate the directorship or shareholding of the defendants at Amazon or that they had stolen money from the Company and deposited the same at Amazon’s accounts,” he said.

“No faithful director exercising independent judgment would take any of the said measures, none of which are beneficial to the Company. In fact, all the steps taken by the plaintiff were contrary to the success of the Company. They were meant to sound a death knell on the company,” he added.