Solar for Health, Zimbabwe

Our flagship initiatives

Solar for Health

1 in 4

health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have no electricity.

2 in 3

of all health facilities in low- and middle-income countries lack access to reliable energy services.

15

countries supported by Solar for Health since 2017, including 11 in sub-Saharan Africa.

1,000

health centres equipped with solar PV systems since 2017.

Health facilities need power. Clinics, maternity wards, operating rooms, medical warehouses, and laboratories rely on electricity to power the lights, refrigerate vaccines, and operate life-saving medical devices. An inability to carry out these essential services puts lives at risk. All too often, particularly in remote areas, health facilities face significant power shortages or don't have access to electricity.

Since 2017, UNDP has been spearheading the Solar for Health initiative as a means of connecting two vital sectors – energy and health – to help countries advance universal health coverage while protecting the environment. To date, with the support of its partners, UNDP has supported the solar electrification of some 1,000 health centres and storage facilities in 15 countries (Zimbabwe, Sudan, Zambia, South Sudan, Namibia, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Yemen, Angola, Nepal, Uganda, Chad, and Eswatini). UNDP has also supported research on the ground to assess which innovative finance mechanisms can help scale these activities in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Namibia and Zambia.   

Solar for Health interventions help to ensure constant and cost-effective access to electricity for uninterrupted health services, while also mitigating the impact of climate change, building resilience, and advancing multiple Sustainable Development Goals. Broader development benefits of solar energy can also include the creation of green jobs and the development of local manufacturing and markets for solar power. By training women as solar technicians to install and maintain solar panels, the initiative also helps countries advance SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment.  

Our objectives

The key objectives of Solar for Health are to promote: 

  • Quality health services: Quality healthcare requires a dependable source of power for multiple purposes, including temperature and hygrometry controls, adequate lighting systems, refrigeration, cold rooms and ICT networks for efficient stock and management of information. 

  • Climate-resilient health systems: Distributed renewable energy is a means by which health systems can increase resilience to the challenges presented by climate change, including extreme weather events, droughts, and other events affecting the traditional power supply. The WHO Operational Framework for building climate-resilient health systems highlights the need to take a broader perspective to the challenge of climate change, including a focus on renewable energy in health facilities and using innovative technologies. 

  • Reduced greenhouse gas emissions: Energy access plays a vital role in enabling health care, but it can also have averse environmental impact unless it includes an explicit focus on progressively shifting to renewable energy and substituting fossil-based sources. The decommissioning of highly polluting and noisy diesel generators considerably improves the local environment around health facilities. 

  • Cheaper energy: Solar energy results in lower power bills for health facilities. These vital budget savings can then be reinvested to support other priority health programmes or infrastructure. Solar power also generates a rapid return on investment. We estimate a 100% return on investment within 2-3.5 years, on average, when health facilities with unreliable energy sources are installed with solar power. 

Our approach 

Key elements of UNDP’s support to countries through Solar for Health include:  

 

Supply of solar equipment and installation support

UNDP supports countries to procure different sizes of solar photovoltaic systems for different levels of the health care system, based on the energy needs. UNDP has developed standardized Solar for Health equipment lists with specifications and has established long-term agreements (LTAs) with suppliers in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, for specific solar energy photovoltaic systems’ equipment.
Maintenance, technology transfer, and institutional capacity development

National ownership, effective management, and maintenance are critical to ensure the sustainability of investments in Solar for Health. UNDP therefore focuses on capacity building to foster ownership at the national level, complemented by the provision of tools and systems to enable regular monitoring; creating enabling market conditions for clean energy for health systems; and fostering the creation of jobs by supporting training, particularly for rural women, to build, install, maintain, and repair solar electrification systems.
Development of Innovative Financial Mechanisms

UNDP is supporting the development of innovative financial mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of solar assets during their lifetime. One of the alternative models proposed is an energy-as-a-service (EaaS) approach that is currently being explored in five countries. This new delivery model seeks to give health facilities access to energy without having to incur upfront equipment procurement costs, while at the same time providing distributed renewable energy service providers the incentive to ensure service quality and reliability over time.
Solar energy promotion and awareness raising

Sensitization activities at health facilities and their surrounding communities are critical to ensure the sustainability of the project. UNDP aims to support the implementation of community engagement strategies, including: i) Creation of a community volunteer committees to oversee the maintenance of the solar equipment at public hospitals and health facilities; and ii) Promotion of solar energy through the media by audio and visual messages to promote the solar energy beyond the public health sector.
Regulatory and policy framework setting for solar energy provision

Implementing sustainable energy solutions to health facilities requires building solid policy and regulatory frameworks. Without these frameworks, the rules around the provision of solar services for health and associated facilities are unclear, making the future scale up of the solutions less likely or more challenging. UNDP provides targeted technical assistance to help countries build such enabling frameworks.
Understanding the climate change – energy – health interlinks

UNDP support knowledge building to achieve deeper understanding of the links between climate change, health and the need for energy solutions, and advocates for these interlinkages to be included in national health, energy and climate plans.

Featured activities

A technician walks among solar panels against a blue sky.
Sustainable financing for Solar for Health

UNDP commissioned a feasibility study to design a sustainable financing mechanism to accelerate the Solar for Health programme in prioritised countries, as well as to provide UNDP and the local governments with information to determine further financing and implementation options of the proposed Solar for Health financing model. The study looked at a demand-side analysis, supply-side analysis, and the design of the Solar for Health financing structure in five countries: Namibia, Liberia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. For more information, please email: energy@undp.org

Contact us
Resilient health services in crisis contexts

In Yemen, 55 hospitals, powered by solar, are providing vaccines and other medicines, schools are able to continue, and small businesses can run late into the night.
In Chad, in 2020 solar power systems were installed in 150 health centres in 23 mostly rural areas with a focus on pre- and antenatal care for women, childbirth and medication storage, but also to help them respond adequately to public health issues such as malaria, and now, COVID-19.

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Supporting HIV clinics in Zimbabwe

Starting in 2017, with funding from the Global Fund, UNDP installed solar PV systems in 405 Health facilities across Zimbabwe, with the installation at an additional 540 facilities underway.

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Effective warehousing in Zambia

In Zambia, UNDP has been working in close partnership with Medical Stores Limited (MSL), an autonomous government agency mandated to receive, store and distribute pharmaceutical health products across the country. With funding received from the Norwegian Emergency Preparedness System (NOREPS) and Global Fund, UNDP has supported the MSL to install a solar powered energy system, combined with an energy efficient temperature control system, covering its 7,000 m2 national medical warehouse space.

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Our partners