What are the competing views of sustainable development?
Zimbabwe’s National Renewable Energy Policy aims to promote investment in the uptake of renewable energy technologies, especially off-grid solutions in rural areas. Both private sector independent power producers in the solar sector and development agencies have set up some renewable energy projects in the rural areas.
The elite view: Government authorities, international development agencies, non-governmental organisations and experts are inclined to the “western” and modernist view of sustainable development. This reduces progress to that which can be measured by tools and indicators. It overlooks local knowledge and human interdependence. This further marginalises indigenous knowledge, creating room for the continued domination of the western models of sustainable development.
View from the grassroots: Contrary to the elitist view, communities argue that sustainable development must be ubuntu-centric. That is, it must be part of a life lived in harmony and cooperation for the welfare of others. As one participant in our study said:
We believe in living a life of mutual concern for the welfare of others. It should not be about heating and cooking only but also how those technologies foster our relationships between us, a people and our surroundings…
Where did you test your ideas?
We conducted research between 2016 and 2022 with 13 people in the Zingondi Resettlement Area, east Zimbabwe. We interviewed power utility employees, energy ministry officials, non-governmental organisation staff and smallholder farmers.
Each home has three hectares of land and the residents depend on smallholder farming. Most families live in thatched mud houses and are dependent on fuelwood for heating. Those who have family working abroad and sending money home can afford to buy solar lanterns. But those who don’t, cannot. When renewable energy is only available to people who can pay, this increases inequality in the community, which undermines local practices of ubuntu.
Continues…
For the full article co-written by Dr Long Seng to visit .