With colleagues from Public Policy and Geography, Professor Barbara Entwisle has been awarded a US$4.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) program. The grant titled “Confronting Energy Poverty: Building an Interdisciplinary Evidence Base, Network, and Capacity for Transformative Change” is focused on the problem of energy poverty in Southern Africa. Limited access to modern energy services including electricity for lighting, modern fuels for cooking and heating, and energy efficient technologies has serious implications for human well-being, the environment, and the stability and growth of national economies. The Energy Poverty PIRE (EPP) involves a wide range of training and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Interconnections of work, gender, and households as constrained by social, cultural, and environmental conditions within and between countries will be of particular interest to sociologists. Pam Jagger (Public Policy/CEE) is the Principal Investigator and will serve as the Energy Poverty PIRE Director; Mike Emch (Geography) is a Co-Investigator. Partners include North Carolina State University, RTI International, the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Malawi), Copperbelt University (Zambia), and the University of Zimbabwe.
For more information see https://fuel.cpc.unc.edu/epp