The United Nations Development Programme has said unequal access to electricity remains one of Afghanistan’s major challenges and that solar energy can be used as a practical solution to provide power to rural areas, reduce dependence on imports and improve livelihoods.<\/p>\n
The agency said reliable electricity has a direct impact on health services, education, livelihoods and economic growth. According to the report, only about 40 to 42 percent of Afghanistan’s population has access to the national power grid, but nearly 90 percent of that access is concentrated in urban areas, while rural residents face a severe shortage of electricity.<\/p>\n
According to the UN Development Programme, expanding the power grid to remote areas is difficult because of high costs and infrastructure problems. For this reason, the agency said solar energy is one of the practical options for bringing electricity to these areas.<\/p>\n
The report said installing solar systems in schools and health centres, along with financing models based on the participation of local communities, could help sustain these programmes. The agency added that in some areas, surplus electricity is sold to nearby homes and shops to cover maintenance costs for the equipment.<\/p>\n
The UN Development Programme also cited solar electrification of women’s markets as one example of these initiatives. According to the agency, this allows women entrepreneurs to work longer hours and continue their activities during power outages.<\/p>\n
The UN agency stressed that solar energy can, in addition to improving health and education services, also play a role in creating jobs, strengthening livelihoods and empowering women, and can help Afghanistan move from mere resilience toward economic recovery and development.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan is now heavily dependent on imported electricity and sources around 80 percent of its power needs from neighbouring countries. Based on information in the report, more than 90 percent of these imports come from Central Asian countries, especially Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, while Iran also supplies part of Afghanistan’s electricity needs.<\/p>\n
Dependence on imported electricity, along with limited public access and the concentration of services in cities, has made Afghanistan’s power grid more vulnerable. For this reason, domestic electricity generation and the use of solar energy, especially in rural and remote areas, are seen as among the options under consideration to reduce this dependence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNDP says solar power could help bring electricity to rural Afghanistan, support services, jobs and reduce dependence on imports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-important-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}