“Chance favors the connected mind,” is Steven Johnson’s short answer to the question posed by his book, “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

Leading minds in global health and sustainable energy connected [...]]]> David Bank wrote this article about the UN Foundation Powering Healthcare workshop; it was originally posted on  Impact IQ on May 7,  2012.

“Chance favors the connected mind,” is Steven Johnson’s short answer to the question posed by his book, “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

Leading minds in global health and sustainable energy connected last week at “Powering Health Care in the Developing World” in Washington, D.C. The UN Foundation and the World Health Organization brought together more than two dozen organizations, including the U.S. State Department, the US Agency for International Development and the United Nations Development Program. Sure enough, the workshop brimmed with good ideas for electrifying the approximately 300,000 health facilities in the developing world that don’t have access to reliable power.

The United Nations has proclaimed 2012 the Year of Sustainable Energy for All, and a series of high-level convenings will peak next month at “Rio + 20″ — the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio conference that effectively set off the sustainability movement. In the lead-up to Rio+20, global players large and small are making commitments to Sustainable Energy for All at the UN Foundation’s website.

The Powering Health Care workshop made a start at putting health facility electrification on the Rio+20 agenda. More than a dozen presentations made clear the tremendous opportunity to enable lighting, communications, medical devices and tele-medicine at frontline health facilities in resource-starved parts of the world. The convergence of improving technology and falling prices for sustainable energy, new low-power LED lighting and medical devices, ubiquitous mobile phones, almost insatiable demand for power and the increasing urgency to meet the 2015 “Millennium Development Goals” is generating a groundswell of activity.

I had the privilege of being a participant-observer at the workshop. One of my hats was as a board member of We Care Solar, the social venture that produces and distributes the award-winning “Solar Suitcase” as an immediate, interim solution for powering health facilities, specifically as a way to reduce deaths in childbirth among both mothers and newborns.  My other hat was as a journalist now chronicling (at Impact IQ) just such new opportunities to tackle major social challenges with innovative approaches and new financial models.

Dr. Laura Stachel, the ob-gyn who co-founded We Care Solar, graphically described the debilitating effects of energy poverty on health delivery, particularly the life-and-death situations in which women with complications in labor arrive at clinics and hospitals without even light to see by.

To illustrate the transformative effect of even modest lighting solutions, she  introduced Dr. Jacques Sebisaho from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who said patients, including the sick and women in labor, generally come in only when their work day is done, that is, when it’s getting dark. “We have lost so many women, so many children, so many people have died, because we didn’t have light,” Dr. Sebisaho said. Two weeks after he returned with a Solar Suitcase, cholera broke out in his village. With light, they were able to monitor patients through the night. “For the first time in this island’s history, nobody died from cholera,” he said. “95 percent of the survival was due to the fact that we had light.”

In my presentation, I tried to synthesize some of the takeaways from the workshop. I’ll just summarize here and return to some of these themes in continuing coverage.

MAKE CONNECTIONS. Many health professionals remain unaware of the new possibilities in sustainable energy, and many energy practitioners don’t fully appreciate the strategic value of focusing on health care facilities as an anchor for the provision of electricity.

UNLOCK VALUE. New technologies, new financing methods or simply new approaches make possible better outcomes at lower costs. Poor people already pay high costs for low-quality energy — as much as $38 billion a year, according to Richenda van Leeuwen, who heads the UN Foundation’s Energy Access initiative. Even problems such as the theft of panels and light bulbs reported by Walt Vernon, head ofM+LNB Engineering, who as installed solar in hospitals and health facilities in Haiti and elsewhere, are really evidence of high demand, the key to a growing market.

TRACK THE INEVITABLE. Global megatrends — a growing middle class in emerging and ‘frontier’ markets, the shift in spending power by women driving investments in health and education — mean that more and more people are becoming willing to pay for that unlocked value.

DRIVE THE AGENDA. Dr. Carlos Dora of the WHO laid out the goal: “Put health care energy needs in the spotlight.” The energy needs of health facilities is not nearly on the agenda now, said Elaine Fletcher, a communications officer with WHO. The UN’s Every Woman, Every Child initiative has gathered 217 commitments around health childbirth, including in some cases significant country-level increases in health funding. But the word ‘electricity’ appears only one (Rwanda has committed to 100% electrification of its health clinics).

IT’S GETTING BETTER.  The presumption that problems are getting worse is not warranted — many things are getting better and could get markedly so with additional investment and innovation. Many developing countries are not on track to meet MDG5, to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015, but even in maternal mortality, success in some places has been stunning, with reductions of 5 percent or more each year, and global reduction on the order of 40 percent or more since 1990. Only a few dozen laggards are holding back even more dramatic progress. And other MDGs, such as the provision of clean drinking water, have been met even ahead of the deadline.

FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS.  One person’s problem is another’s opportunity. Rick LaRue of Solar Electric Light Fund mentioned Trojan Battery’s efforts to develop the market for off-grid energy storage devices. Others described low-power medical devices such as digital X-rays and super-cheap refrigerators. Jim Meszaros of the PR giant Weber Shandwick, who is handling the Sustainable Energy for All campaign, noted that nobody would have believed a plan to deploy more than five billion mobile phones in a decade, but we’re well past that now.

SCALE UP.  The world is awash in capital, and it’s increasingly flowing to ‘frontier markets’ in the developing world and to products and services that show falling prices and increasing demand. That confounds the prevailing assumption in the world of global health and economic development is that there’s a chronic shortage of money. Vijay Modi of Columbia University’s Earth Institute reported that with comparative energy sources costing the equivalent of $3 per kilowatt/hour, and $30,000 per mile to extend the electricity grid, that provision of off-grid sustainable energy is becoming increasingly attractive to local entrepreneurs.

TELL STORIES. Credible data and investable deals can go a long way toward putting Powering Health on the global agenda. But compelling stories of success, such as Dr. Sebisaho’s, can harness people’s passion for progress.

A very excited Isha Daramy-Kabia called me from Sierra Leone today. Isha is a midwife I met in December through the Global Women’s Leadership Network and the driving force behind our recent excursion to Sierra Leone.

If you ever meet Isha, you’ll learn that it’s just about impossible to turn her down. Isha [...]]]>

A very excited Isha Daramy-Kabia called me from Sierra Leone today. Isha is a midwife I met in December through the Global Women’s Leadership Network and the driving force behind our recent excursion to Sierra Leone.

If you ever meet Isha, you’ll learn that it’s just about impossible to turn her down. Isha has impeccable clinical skills, years of experience in mobilizing communities to improve maternal and child health, a regal demeanor, and an unwavering passion for reducing maternal mortality.  Within days of meeting her, she had contacted the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and UNFPA to arrange for my visit. And sure enough, in late January, within weeks of our first encounter, I was boarding a plane, headed to Sierra Leone to pilot a Solar Suitcase program.

Lisa, Isha, Laura and Carol

Accompanying me on this trip was an experienced photovoltaic instructor from Solar Energy International, Carol Weis, and a talented documentary filmmaker, Lisa Russell.

The health officials with whom we met grasped the significance of our easy-to-use solar power systems. Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world. Most of Sierra Leone’s 1,120 rural health centers have NO electricity whatsoever, making it difficult to deliver critical services, particularly at night  The country has uneven terrain, and rural health centers are often hard to reach.  Bringing electricity to remote sites is not without its challenges.

Health workers celebrating the new light - Isha on right

Installing the solar panel on a village clinic

In a four-wheel drive, we crisscrossed the beautiful countryside, past lush fields, mountainous backdrops, and tropical trees,  When we arrived at villages, the local women hugged us and beamed with delight – our Solar Suitcases were often the FIRST electricity for the entire village! On several occasions were were greeted by communities who showed their excitement about the Solar Suitcase by singing and dancing, inventing lyrics about our mission. “Welcome!” they chanted in Krio. “You have brought light. Now we can get treatment.”

Carol Weis led the solar installations, engaging dozens of villagers in the rooftop installations, wiring, and equipment mounting.  Sometimes communities would craft a ladder especially for our project and we sensed the joy and pride that came from their involvement. Isha and I taught classes to health workers, covering Solar Suitcase operation and maintenance, basic obstetric skills, and use of the fetal dopplers we provided. Often our classes gained an added audience of children and elders, equally eager to learn about our solar powered devices. The highlight of our trip was when the Minister of Health and Sanitation herself –  the honorable Minister Zainab Bangura – joined us for a twilight Solar Suitcase class at one remote health facility.

Weighing a newborn baby

This week, Isha returned to the clinics to follow up on our installations. “It’s fantastic!” she bubbled. “Everything is working so well…Pregnant women are arriving earlier in labor, giving the health providers more opportunity to provide labor care. More women are coming for skilled deliveries. Even the TBAs (traditional birth attendants) are coming. The light is so bright, it gives a transformation of the village.”

On this trip, we demonstrated that rural health workers can quickly learn basic solar electricity, that a rugged entry-level solar electric system can be easily installed in remote health centers, and that communities can become instant partners in our efforts to reduce energy poverty and promote safe motherhood. But this is just the beginning…and we hope that one day we will fulfill Isha’s dream to ensure that all the labor rooms in Sierra Leone have reliable lighting.

It’s my birthday – a chance for reflection.

Three years ago at the same time of year, I faced a major challenge – how to install a solar electric system in a state hospital in Nigeria. My hospital research the year prior had alerted me to the fact that sporadic and unreliable electricity [...]]]>

It’s my birthday – a chance for reflection.

Three years ago at the same time of year, I faced a major challenge – how to install a solar electric system in a state hospital in Nigeria. My hospital research the year prior had alerted me to the fact that sporadic and unreliable electricity was a major impediment to the delivery of safe obstetric care. I had watched helplessly as critically ill mothers were turned away from the hospital when the labor room was without lights, the operating room was powerless, and when the laboratory had no refrigerated blood products for emergency transfusions.  My husband, Hal Aronson, had come up with a solution –four large stand-alone solar electric systems targeting maternal health care in the hospital. But translating design into action from the other side of the world was a formidable challenge. We surveyed the hospital power needs, researched and interviewed solar installers in Africa, created a portable solar electric demonstration kit to our Nigerian colleagues, and picked out most of the electrical supplies we wanted to install. However, we struggled to raise sufficient funds for the task.  We were at an impasse.

My birthday was approaching….and it occurred to me that I could use the occasion to put on a WE CARE Solar fundraiser. With the help of a talented UC Berkeley medical student who assembled musicians and dancers, we put on a wonderful event. We showed slides of Nigeria, danced to African music, and raised funds and excitement about the hospital solar project.  Soon we were back on track – and a month later the state hospital had solar lights, power, and a new blood bank refrigerator.

Three years have ensued, and I never could have imagined how events would unfold. Our first solar installation resulted in a marked drop in maternal deaths at the hospital, sparking requests for solar electricity from surrounding health facilities. Hal refined his design of a suitcase-sized solar electric system, and assembly of these portable solar kits became a popular activity for engineering students from around the country. With scores of volunteer support, our Solar Suitcases made their way to clinics in Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Haiti, Burma, and other nations. Brent Moellenberg, a wonderful engineer, joined Hal to design a Solar Suitcase that could be manufactured at scale. By the end of 2011, the Solar Suitcase had been placed in health facilities in 17 countries.

And now, a new chapter emerges. We are engaging with NGOs and Ministries of Health to map out ways to deploy Solar Suitcases to maternal health facilities on a regional scale.  Our recent experiences in Sierra Leone and Uganda reinforced how important the provision of electricity is to rural maternal health care systems. We continue to see how crucial it is for maternal and child health workers to work with reliable light and to have mobile communication for emergency back-up care and hospital referrals.

So..…three years later…another birthday wish. As the UN has launched “The Sustainable Energy for All” initiative, we will continue to advocate for renewable energy solutions for maternal health care facilities throughout the developing world. Our commitment? Through collaborations with Ministries of Health and NGOs, we aim to significantly scale our efforts to bring light and power to frontline midwives and health workers for essential medical and obstetric care, improving health outcomes for mothers, their babies, and their families.