Describe the contributions this paper makes (300 words maximum) (10 marks)
What are the main issues that this paper discusses? What does the paper achieve?
Developing countries such as Sub-Saharan Africa is in constant oppression trying to surpass many problems that hinder their socio-economic development, but have inadequate social services and restricted economic prospects. The primary reason for being in a state of extreme poverty is due to the lack of modern energy services. This paper goes into great detail, highlighting the methods of accessibility needed for successful deployment of modern energy services, and …show more content…
What was being argued is that the unavailability of modern energy services is a main reason for poverty and inadequate social services. Home to extreme poverty, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading developmental challenge is to utilize its renewable energy resources, and to provide sanitary, affordable energy services that will support socio-economic activities and encourage sustainable development.
According to the paper, the Human Development Index (HDI) puts Sub-Saharan Africa at the bottom of the list of 186 countries surveyed. It was also mentioned that halving the poverty rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is extremely hard to reach by 2015. That being said, they argue that being exposed to modern energy services would decrease the number of economic and social problems. For instance, the availability to sufficient modern energy service will increase human development; starting with education, health, clean environment, drinking water, enterprises, transportation, lighting, heating, cooking, mechanical power for agriculture, and grinding/milling. The correlation between these factors and human development were critiqued in a chart, which I thought was appropriate as it was easy to comprehend, but very thoroughly explained. Conversely, I believe the table was biased in declaring their comparisons, so the validity of those results aren’t very …show more content…
To a large extent, the grounds for extreme poverty in regions in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to limited access to modern energy services. Therefore, the attached figure of a world map highlighting the Sub-Saharan Africa region was helpful as it effectively showed what is meant by the term “Sub-Saharan region.” Essentially, the paragraph introduced the idea that the access to modern energy services begins with a household having dependable and affordable access to clean cooking facilities and electricity. The seriousness of this issue was clearest when viewing figure 2, as the figure illustrated the average day to day struggles in Sub-Saharan Africa. All in all, the addition of figure 1 and 2 were helpful features, as it puts the issue into