2020 – may it be the decade of light

Our Head of CSR, Prajna Khanna, looks back at 2019, and some key moments, to get inspired for the next year (and decade)

We’ve just finished turning the lights out on 2019, a year marked by tumultuous world events that saw global temperatures and tensions rise, and societies become increasingly polarized. It was enough to trigger pangs of despair – even in an eternal optimist like me!

I started in this role in 2015, when an estimated 1.6 billion people in the world were living off-grid or underserved by the grid. In the four years since, that figure has almost halved to 860 million people as per the State of Electricity Access Report of the World Bank (SEAR).
 

This is an incredible leap forward, one partly facilitated by the maturation of the solar sector in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as India’s rapid rural electrification program.

But even with the most well thought-out strategies and models, the real test is in the field. The impact of the human factor, cultural differences and political contexts both within organizations and in countries cannot be underestimated.
 

Agility, adaptation and resilience are even more important than the ability to innovate. Forecasting or predicting outcomes over several years without piloting, as is required by lengthy and thorough funding application by donors, is at best an educated guess.
 

In 2020, we hope to pivot towards agile testing and a “fail fast” approach to optimize the resources being mobilized towards bridging the energy access gap.

In December, I spent a week in India with my colleagues Natasha and Rakesh, reflecting on the year gone by and planning our CSR initiatives for 2020. Considering the rapid pace of electrification in India, we used informal meetings with our peers and other industry stakeholders to gain insights that could inform our future strategy there.
 

This process of sharing led to invaluable insights based on the experiences of other corporate foundations, industry policy experts and thinktanks operating in India.  The key takeaway for us is to shift from viewing energy access as a goal in itself but to see energy and light access as a means to an end – underpinning other developmental needs.
 

This is validated through the SEAR Report as a key finding, “Energy is inextricably linked to every other critical sustainable development challenge – health, education, food security, gender equality, poverty reduction, employment, and climate change, to name a few. That is why meeting universal electricity access is essential to reaching other 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 

This theory met reality, when we visited a Kanwarsika senior secondary school in Mewat, a small Meo-Muslim community in a primarily Hindu area. The India team has been working with their partner the SRF Foundation, Gurgaon Haryana to light up badminton courts in rural, government schools in the area.

I was both honored and touched to meet Unjila, a talented young badminton player who represented the school and outperformed the entire group at the state games, competing at the highest level for her age group.

The long-term impact on the mindset of a young girl from a conservative family who competes at this level of sport was decidedly not one of the expected KPIs of this lighting intervention!
 

How Unjila perceives herself and how she’s perceived by those around her has been transformed. She’s seen as a role model for others in her area, carving new paths and opportunities for herself and other girls.

As her coach explained, “Step by step they have gone ahead, first qualifying, then making through the levels and next year we hope Unjila will bring home the trophy”.
 

It’s not only about the light but laying the groundwork for such a profound personal and community success reset my optimist’s compass and has given me renewed energy for the next year, and the next decade.
 

Onward, into 2020 – the decade of light!