Poverty Reductions Strategies: Energy

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Reduce poverty by improving energy access As a basic tool for the humanity since the fire’s discovery, the use of energy has been improved in many different ways during the course of history. This evolution has been tied to technology improvements, which shows new ways to increase efficiency, reduce costs, bring new uses of it or just facilitate the day-on-day life. Accordingly, a country without access to energy services puts her people in a hard way to improve his standard of living and deprives of the most basic economic opportunities. Absence access to modern sources of energy tends to accentuate the existence of social asymmetry in country’s welfare. Those countries face huge problems on the development framework such as stagnant of poverty, migratory flows or lack of innovation, especially in the countryside, where opportunities are scarce and rural dwellers feel largely impotent in the face of their social exclusion. Numbers of economists are convinced that with the arrival of electricity in these societies, they might be able to acquire a better quality of life and bigger degree of economic sustainability. Consequently, when government try to reduce the poverty in a developing country the establishment of public policies should include the expansion of access to energy, in particular to electricity (Pereira, Freitas, & Silva, 2010). Concept of ‘energy poverty’ The concept of energy poverty has been more and more debated in the last years (IEA, 2002). Energy poverty is usually defined as a complete lack of any modern energy sources, thus the degree of energy poverty is shown in consuming only solid cooking fuels; the energy poor may well consume commercial energy sources such as charcoal, marketed wood or kerosene for lighting (but not for cooking). Moreover, some international institutions refer the concept of “energy poverty” to populations who do
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