Whenever there is a talk about the Millenium Development Goals, most of automatically refer them to eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, right to primary education or combating HIV, malaria and other diseases. But what about the energy poverty?

Lack of access to electricity in developing countries stays way behind all other development goals discussed in media, covered by press and promoted through various campaigns. Perhaps it comes from the simple fact that to so many of us electricity is almost as natural as water in a tap, shower and a toilet. We simply do not think about it. But if we did, we would notice that it is one of these very few conveniences that affect our lives to the greatest extent. There wouldn’t be this blogging competition nor a place to share the ideas if we had no electricity. How would we cure patients in hospitals if there was no electric current? How our schools would function? What if a night meant to us only darkness and nothing could light it up?

Even though it may seem to be difficult to imagine, this is how the reality of more than a billion of people on our planet looks like. Almost 150 years after Thomas Edison invented a light bulb, millions of people still live in conditions as if he had never made it!

Electricity does not sound tempting. Rather trivial. But perhaps we should pay more attention to it and envisage it as a tool, one step on a way to more overall development of populations in need. To see it as one element of the puzzle, where all the elements are necessary to make the whole stuff work. So people can work and take their lives in their hand, send children to school and to a doctor if there is such a need. So at some point we could scream “Eureka!” when we finally find our way to sustainable development of our planet..