The potentials of technology complementarity to address energy poverty in refugee hosting landscapes in Uganda

The continued influx of refugees into Uganda confronts people and hosting landscapes with severe challenges. Vast volumes of biomass resources are required for energy and building materials. Consequently, woodlands have come under pressure as the key source within refugee-receiving regions. This raises the question of how to simultaneously achieve a higher standard of living and energy autonomy for the population while reducing primary resource demand and safeguarding nature. We propose that nature-based and/or technological adaptions can ameliorate this dramatic and deteriorating situation. We thus evaluated the impact of: (i) building autonomy by growing biomass resources on scale via approaches such as agroforestry and ii) enhancing energy efficiency through use of improved cook stoves (ICS) and switching toward renewable energy sources. Focusing on four Ugandan districts, we analyzed the energy and land demand of households and districts in three scenarios. Our results show all districts running into shortages of biomass resources and cultivable land and two districts already reaching their limits. An efficient use of woodfuel combined with solar energy could reduce primary energy demand by up to 37%. The remaining wood demand could be realized by agroforestry systems thereby ensuring household energy autonomy and access to reliable energy sources. We recommend combining energy efficiency measures and technology to reduce firewood demand with agroforestry solutions to satisfy the remaining necessities. Both are needed to reduce the essistential pressure on woodlands and increase the energy autonomy of refugee-hosting landscapes while respecting stakeholder needs.

Automated summary

The continued influx of refugees into Uganda has brought severe challenges in terms of energy and building material demand. Research suggests that growing biomass resources, enhancing energy efficiency, and utilizing agroforestry systems can help alleviate the situation.