Implications of Non-technical Factors for Off-grid Electrification Initiatives in Cameroon: A Review of the Esaghem Village Solar PV Project

Abstract

Ensuring access to clean energy for all—Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #7— remains one of the most elusive SDGs in developing countries. This study reviews efforts to meet this goal in a developing community, namely Esaghem Village, Manyu Division in Cameroon. The efforts involved the use of a micro-off-grid solar PV system. The study employed primary data collected in-situ and from the project documents, and secondary data from electronic as well as conventional sources. The review is intended to highlight the impact of political, economic, social, technological, ecological, cultural and historical (PESTECH) factors on renewable energy (RE) initiatives in a developing country. These are important but oft-ignored historiocultural factors in the energy domain. The review reveals how one feature of indigenous African tradition, namely the self-help ethos can be harnessed to improve clean energy access in a developing country. It also showed how factors commonly associated with developing countries such as war, administrative centralization, bureaucratic corruption and ineptitude as well as poverty, thwart RE initiatives. The review underscores the importance of non-technical dimensions of RE projects and holds many lessons for the development, management and sustainability of such projects in developing countries writ large.