World Bank Awards Barefoot Power for Cost-Effective Lighting

Microfinance Focus, May 28, 2010: The World Bank Group‘s Lighting Africa Program have recently awarded five innovative products as the best able to deliver safe, reliable and cost-effective lighting to millions of people in Africa who currently rely on fuel-based lamps or other low-quality products. Barefoot Power a social entrepreneurial business won the award in the room lighting category and also in top performance category. Barefoot Power‘s Firefly, won the best value category for products that cost under $40 and came second in the task lighting category.

Barefoot designs and manufactures technology products specifically for poor people that have the potential to reduce poverty in developing countries. It has developed a range of affordable quality lighting products and initiated their mass manufacture. Barefoot aims to establish an efficient grassroots distribution network to supply the poor with these and other 21st century technology products.

The winners were judged by a panel of industry experts and announced in Nairobi, Kenya at the Lighting Africa Conference and Trade Fair. Lighting Africa is helping mobilize the private sector to provide modern, off-grid lighting – such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) to more than 250 million people in Sub- Saharan Africa by 2030. Greenlight Planet‘s Sun King‘, won in the task lighting category and took second in the best value category. SunTransfer took second place in the top performance category. Light Design‘s Nova S200‘, which took second place in the room lighting category.

Jean-Philippe Prosper, IFC‘s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said, “The awards mark the beginning of a process that will help consumers identify quality lighting products more easily. The awards were designed to recognize off-grid lighting systems that achieve high performance, while remaining affordable for low- income earners in Sub Saharan Africa.”

Lighting Africa, a joint World Bank and IFC developmental initiative, will provide feedback to the five winners and all of the 24 finalists with detailed laboratory test results and user comments to help them refine their products and ready them for the African market. IFC is a member of the World Bank Group.

Lighting Africa‘s technical partners are the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy in Freiburg, Germany, the National Lighting Test Center in Beijing, China, and the Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University in California. Lighting Africa is implemented in partnership with: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Energy Sector Management Assistance (ESMAP), The UK Department for International Development (DFID), Good Energies Inc., Luxemburg, The Netherlands, The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), The Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), and the Asia Sustainable and Alternative Energy Program (ASTAE).

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