Human capacity and institutional development towards a sustainable energy future in Ethiopia

The overwhelming majority of Ethiopians lack access to modern energy fuels such as electricity and liquid petroleum gas, still locked into a biomass-based energy system. As such, women and children in rural areas spend long hours of productive time and labour on woodfuel collection and the urban poor spend a sizeable proportion of their income to meet their daily energy needs. Electricity, which is at the disposal of every household in Western Europe is largely restricted to the urban centres in Ethiopia, hence indicating a strong correlation between lack of access to modern energy and poverty. The paper will analyse the reasons why Ethiopia is lagging behind the rest of the developing world in setting up a sustainable energy pathway. As such, the performance and ‘mind-set’ of various ‘agencies’, i.e. higher education system, government, energy authorities, donor agencies, etc. will be reviewed. The paper refers to a range of cases in to illustrate the challenge of building the mechanisms that allow energy technologies to be successfully disseminated, supported and integrated into rural livelihoods. The paper will provide a series of observations and recommendations to ameliorate the current state-of-affairs and ways through which the various actors (community-based organisations, government at various levels and to a lesser degree, donors) can contribute towards that end.