The UN Environment Programs (UNEP) Sasakawa Prize was awarded Tuesday to Nuru Design, a social enterprise introducing rechargeable lamps to villages in Rwanda, Kenya and India, and Trees, Water and People (TWP) – an organization collaborating with local NGOs to distribute fuel-efficient stoves to communities in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Haiti.
It is estimated that 94 percent of the Rwandan population has no access to electricity and majority are forced to use ad-hoc solutions such as kerosene lamps. Unfortunately this is an expensive, unhealthy, dangerous and environmentally unsound solution.
Nurus solution to these problems is the modular lighting system NURU (meaning ‘light’ in Swahili), which is a grid-independent, affordable, clean and safe system that offers lighting anywhere at any time.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Mathai, who was on the jury that awarded the prize, said that both institutions managed to fulfill three standards set namely replicable, helping people at a grassroots level and inexpensive.
TWP Co-Founder and International Director Stuart Conway said that stove he created managed to reduce deforestation and improve the health of housewives as it burns 50 to 70 percent less wood and removes toxic smoke from homes.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
