September 20, 2020 (Khartoum) The Resident Representative of the United Nations Program in Sudan, Silva Ramachandran, called for the establishment of a national solar energy fund in which money would be
collected from the government and donors so that Sudan could benefit from renewable energy at reasonable prices.
In a statement on Sunday, he said that Sudan spent a billion dollars of its limited foreign exchange resources to import diesel in 2019, while 60% of the population has no electricity, and 21% of them suffer
from food insecurity and poverty.
Silva Ramachandran, said in a statement that switching to distributed renewable energy such as solar energy provides a means to address many problems simultaneously, and unleash the agricultural potential and rural development in Sudan.
Ramachandran emphasized that the fund would guarantee farmers, communities and families access to subsidized and low-cost loans to invest in solar energy technology and fill their financial gaps.
65 percent of Sudan’s population of 41.8 million people live in rural areas, and their income depends on agriculture and livestock, and the United Nations says that more than a million farms depend on polluting, expensive and often unavailable fossil fuels.