**Author details**

*Public Health in Developing Countries - Challenges and Opportunities*

begins with children in so many ways!

Chandima Gomes, to start January 2020.

be used across Africa.

engineers, and installers.

staff.

**9. Conclusions**

with similar goals [89].

protected by ACLENet has written detailing that the surrounding community now feels safe to use the school as a meeting place since it was protected [88]. Effective lightning safety education and behavior change for communities

4.Decreasing the cost of LP by using local materials to avoid expensive imports and developing "templates" for schools and other common buildings that can

5.Fostering graduate education to train Africa's own experts. The University of Zambia is accepting the first class in lightning science and electrical engineering, a program developed under the mentorship of one of ACLENet's founders,

6.Working with governments to assure implementation of internationally recognized lightning protection codes consistent with IEC 62305-1,2,3,4 [52].

7.Working with utilities, mining, aviation, and other industries to provide lightning protection for infrastructure as well as lightning safety education for their

8.Advocating improved training and professional qualifications for LP designers,

Lightning is a significant cause of weather-related death and injury across Africa [1, 5, 40]. While it is a largely preventable death in developed countries where "lightning-safe" areas are usually readily available and within a few feet of those threatened [1, 17, 18, 60, 77], the majority of sub-Saharan Africans are at risk 24/7/365 due to living in dwellings that are not lightning-safe. Further risk factors include engaging in largely outdoor, labor-intensive work such as farming and shepherding [39]. Worshippers often meeting outdoors and children walking to or attending school, roadside shopkeepers, those walking to the market, working in mines, or other outdoor activities are also all at risk [1, 42]. Poor or nonexistent lightning detection systems, little or no incorporation of lightning data into forecasting, no warnings to the public and those at risk, cultural beliefs, and many other factors keep injuries, deaths, and property damage from lightning a substantial

ACLENet was founded to address many aspects of lightning safety, public education, and injury prevention and to work with governments and other agencies

threat to entire families, schools, villages, and populations [1].

**122**

Mary Ann Cooper1 \*, Ronald L. Holle2 and Richard Tushemereirwe3

1 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network), River Forest, IL, USA

2 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network), Oro Valley, AZ, USA

3 ACLENet (African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network), Kampala, Uganda

\*Address all correspondence to: macooper@uic.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
