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Electricity Access for Indigenous Communities in Sarawak
Friday 17 March 2017, 08:00am - 05:00pm
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In 2016, it was estimated that 1.2 billion people around the world did not have access to electricity, and according to World Energy Outlook 2016, those affected by this were the population predominantly living in rural areas. Efforts towards increasing access to energy have been made, as can be seen in Sarawak, where research projects have been undertaken to address the need for the provision of electricity access for indigenous communities in the state.  

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, through the Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations (ISITI), has worked closely with the University of Cambridge towards conducting research on understanding community preferences to ensure that electrification schemes are congruent with the communities’ specific development pathways. The results of the research were discussed during the recent forum on “Electricity Access for Indigenous Communities in Sarawak” which was held at Wisma Bapa Malaysia, Kuching. 

The forum, which was organised by Sarawak Development Institute (SDI) and ISITI together with the University of Cambridge focused on providing access to electricity services to remote, indigenous communities through decentralised generation technologies. Some of the results discussed during the forum showed that the communities placed most value on the operator- model, underpinning the provision of electricity services and that there was a strong preference for a community-based model over a utility-based model.

The study undertaken by both UNIMAS and the university of Cambridge also shed insight on the reason for the preference of a community-based operator model, which was related to the experience of using electricity for productive uses.

The forum also explored the importance of social and institutional challenges to providing electricity services to indigenous communities in Sarawak and highlighted the need for stakeholders to engage with the communities to overcome these challenges. 

 
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