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Poor communities in and around cities are growing rapidly in developing countries, in many cases without any corresponding expansion in municipal services.  In terms of energy, this means that slum dwellers often pay high rates for substandard (and sometimes illegal) electricity, when power is available at all.

The World Bank has been working actively with client countries to address this situation.  The challenge is complex, often involving social, regulatory, financing and urban planning issues on top of expansion of energy infrastructure.  But by bringing together the main stakeholders – utilities, government agencies, civil society and the communities themselves – solutions are being found.

As part of this effort, ESMAP organized a South-South Knowledge Exchange on 19-23 May, 2014, in Nairobi, Kenya, attended by experts from Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Kenya. The event was designed to inform a national energy access project supported by the World Bank and the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) to help Kenya Power bring legal, safe electricity connections to slum areas across the country.

    Image courtesy of Raimundo Santa Rosa.

Over 50 Kenya Power staff came to the event to hear about the experiences  of electricity distribution companies such as ESKOM (South Africa), Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM, Colombia) and LIGHT (Brazil).  Additionally, representatives from organizations working on improving services and infrastructure in Nairobi’s slums brought a local perspective. 

Over the week-long workshop, the experts worked with the Kenya Power teams responsible for Nairobi’s three regions to examine the utility’s current approach and goals for electrification and to suggest options based on global experience.

The week began with presentations by the experts to the Kenya Power group.  This group included representatives from the central slum electrification team, top management, and representatives from the utility’s marketing, operations and social, health and environment departments. Such diverse representation was itself a new experience for many participants, and by the end of the week the group had coalesced as a strong team. 

The experts emphasized experiences that their companies had used to address specific challenges in their countries’ slums.  EPM and LIGHT’s comprehensive community engagement approaches coupled with solutions to payment and affordability concerns for new customers attracted a lot of interest.  ESKOM’s approach—improving safety and security in slums as part of its overall conversion to prepayment as a means to ensure that electricity purchases remain affordable—was also appreciated, as the same issues are concerns in Kenyan slums. 

A visit to Kibera, Nairobi’s most extensive slum, helped the experts to understand the challenges that Kenya Power faces. 

“Don’t underestimate the people of the slums. Get to know them through their leaders.  Social economic mapping can help to organize the work that needs to be done,” said Gladys Juma, a social specialist working in informal settlements.  “When people are on your side and trust you, they will do what’s necessary to get the job done.”

“To succeed you must follow the structures on the ground.  Work with those who govern the communities,” said Patric Mbuvi, Soweto East, Representative on the Settlement Executive Committee.  “If not, you could put your infrastructure in one day, and by the next morning it might be “moved out”.”

After the site visit, teams were formed to look at specific challenges and develop solutions that would work in Kenya.  A major focus was on community engagement. Civil society organizations from Kibera and other slums provided insights into how they work within slum environments and tips on engaging stakeholders.

Work continued through the week on integrating community engagement activities into the overall process of converting illegal into legal connections and new electricity connections – from socio-economic and physical mapping of slums, through infrastructure planning and placement, recruitment of customers and overcoming barriers to connection, and finally assisting new customers to adjust to new payment systems.

The World Bank/ GPOBA project with Kenya Power will continue through early 2016, with a goal of 40,000 new household connections in Kenya.  The results of this event and other international knowledge exchange activities will inform Kenya Power as it increases collaboration with community-based organizations and undertakes communication campaigns to encourage switching over to legal connections.

The week ended with heartfelt goodbyes from the international experts and a new ideas and a new set of tasks for the re-energized Kenya Power staff.

“[Kibera] is much harder than Rio’s slums, but the people are beautiful,” said Raimundo Santa Rosa from LIGHT. “I want to establish a link between Brazil and Kenya to help in the slums.  We must link our hearts together to help them to overcome the problems we all have in common.”