Agricultural Services and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Africa

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**96**

Process. Ghana: Accra; 2017

pdf

**Chapter 7**

*and Tobias Trenkle*

**Abstract**

food supply.

water-food-energy nexus

**1. Introduction**

**99**

Economic Development of Rural

Access to electricity is essential for humanity to develop. Nowadays, 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have no access to energy services, most of them living in rural areas. However, this region has an outstanding solar potential that could unlock cheap power generation through solar power systems. This raises the question of how rural communities in Africa could avail the benefits of renewable energy systems to gain access to electricity and develop sustainable and productive activities around while facing low purchase power, high interest rates, and high investment costs. The concept of decentralized energy-water-food system proposes a solution: it enables renewable energy access with biomass and solar energy for the private power of the local community, provides secure water supply and yearround irrigation, and increases their livelihood through the profitability of farming and generation of jobs. The concept is applied to a case study in rural Ghana and the least-cost design is obtained. An economic feasibility analysis is carried out on the evaluation of profitability and the total financial value generated for the main stakeholders. The results portrait the economic advantages of the proposed concept design—a hybrid solar-biogas system—to deliver affordable electricity, water, and

**Keywords:** rural electrification, economic model, hybrid energy system, sustainable development, least-cost optimization, agricultural productivity,

In 2017, internal migration was estimated at 1 billion people in developing countries. Rural to urban migration is at the core of this displacement [1]. Rural migration is "one of the main coping and survival mechanisms that is available to those affected by environmental degradation and climate change" [2], an important component of rural livelihoods'strategies to couple with poverty, food insecurity, lack of employment and income-generating opportunities, and inequality, among the root causes [3]. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rural migration counts at least for

Communities in Sub-Saharan

Africa through Decentralized

Energy-Water-Food Systems

*Johannes Winklmaier, Sissi Adeli Bazan Santos*
