One of the finalists for the 2011 Ashden Awards is the Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, which brings affordable, energy-efficient technologies to families in northern Pakistan. Photograph: Ashden Awards
Affordable renewable energy needs to be taken seriously as the crucial ingredient of sustainable development, and the Ashden Awards recognise this
Energy, it seems, is the Cinderella of development policy. Listen to governments, aid agencies and the big foundations, and the priorities have been malaria, maternal mortality, vaccinations, HIV – health has hoovered up attention and aid dollars in the last decade. Education has come a close second. Now attention is slowly moving to include agriculture and food security, but the rhetoric is not being matched by the funding.
