IESE BUSINESS SCHOOL
of Barcelona, Spain, is partnering with the Fuel Freedom Foundation to create an international education program to reduce energy poverty in developing countries. The Fuel Freedom Foundation is a U.S. nonprofit working to make cleaner-burning fuels more available globally.
According to the International Energy Agency, 1.2 billion people around the world lack access to electricity and more than 2.7 billion do not have clean cooking facilities. More than 95 percent of these people are either in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia, and around 80 percent are in rural areas.
The Fuel Freedom Chair on Energy and Social Development at IESE Business School will bring together executives, policymakers, and community leaders to apply business cases to implement solutions to energy poverty. Research will examine how best to promote the alternative energy sources needed to supply power and electricity, transportation, agricultural fertilizer, and cooking fuels.
The initial phase of the chair’s program will focus on sub-Saharan Africa with a program called EmPOWERing Africa. The first education session will be delivered in the 2016–2017 academic year to Kenya’s business leaders and policymakers at Strathmore University’s Business School in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Access to affordable fuels would create significant and positive change in developing nations and is achievable by fuel diversification,” says Fuel Freedom chairman Yossie Hollander. “Ending energy poverty has been an elusive target, until now.”