Martina Kunert

Martina Kunert is a German and founder of Renew’N’Able Malawi (RENAMA). It is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that focuses on supporting the practical coordination and learning in the renewable energy sector in Malawi. Paida Mpaso talks to her.

Tell me about yourself.

My name is Martina Kunert. I was born in Hamburg, Germany, on a cold day with snow and frozen lakes, in the beginning of 1980.

Where did you do your education?

In Germany, we are blessed with a well developed vocational training system in which you can combine on-the-job training with theoretical education in professional colleges. After leaving high school, I first did such a two-year training as a banking professional with the wish of getting a good glimpse of how the economics works. I then added some work experience in the Investor & Public Relations Department of a Venture Capital company while taking up social sciences and economics at a distance learning university. In 2002, I started full time studies at the University of Mannheim from where I graduated with a Master’s degree (MA) with my main research being in the fields of international relations, democratisation and development studies and contemporary economic and social history.

I part-time worked as a freelance video journalist for a local television channel and as a research assistant at the leading Centre for European Social Science Research. I also spent some time in Brussels, Belgium, as a research fellow and trainee for the European Economic and Social Council, and was actively involved in a couple of study grant programmes in different countries in Eastern Europe and Russia. Later, I was involved in a number of adult education, energy efficiency and value chain development projects.

You are a German, why did you bring the renewable project to Malawi?

That was my fate it seems. Before finally making Malawi my next home, I lived in the Grenadines, a small group of islands in the Carribean Sea. There, I underwent training as a development instructor. The programme I participated in that time included a volunteering stage in certain projects in Southern Africa. I chose to come and see how I can help the community-based child care centres around the DAPP Amalika TTC in Malawi in their activities. This was the starting point for me to learn about how the majority of people in Malawi live, what they would like to change if they could, and what huge negative impact the lack of access to healthy, environmentally friendly and economically viable has on their daily lives.

I then started undertaking extensive research on the ground on people’s baseline energy usage and needs in different areas of the country as well as on the different stakeholders’ engagement, including the government departments, regulatory bodies, research institutions, NGOs and private sector organisations, in solving some of the challenges in this area.

Tell me about your project

There are so many small projects all over the country and many of them are not yet working sustainably as they have ran out of back-up support. Simultaneously, some highly potential approaches to rural electrification and household energy efficiency didn’t seem to have been explored for Malawi yet, sometimes for a simple lack of awareness. After confirmation of the identified gaps by officials and other stakeholders, we founded Renew’N’Able Malawi (RENAMA) as a non-governmental organization (NGO) to focus on supporting the practical coordination and learning sharing in the renewable energy sector in Malawi.

Among others, we gather data on all ongoing developments and projects in the sector and developed suggestions on how a public national database could be set up and updated based on inputs from implementers.

I helped to create a private social enterprise implementing the “Powered by Nature” programme, a campaign that aims at establishing a vivid distribution and entrepreneur network in Malawi to ensure that everyone with interrupted or no availability of electricity can finally get access to high-quality yet affordable basic energy alternatives for household.

How are you helping the communities?

Currently, we are working with two communities in Thyolo and Phalombe Districts on this. They are now able to rent out rechargeable battery boxes with D/C LED bulbs, phone chargers and even small TV screens.

A major area of focus for the next year is on developing more educational projects to equip local communities with do-it-yourself skills, using public media, mobile laboratories visiting schools and renewable energy demonstration centres.

What success stories can you share?

A very important milestone for me is that, after having voluntarily knocked on all kinds of doors for several years without any external support, we have managed to establish RENAMA as a widely acknowledged facilitator for knowledge exchange in our field. We have also been blessed with some substantial funding at an early stage of setting up our NGO, the Rural Off-Grid Energy Kiosk. There are still a lot of lessons to be learned.

What are some of the challenges that you are facing?

We have had to face a couple of delays and bureaucratic hassles in the setting up and expansion of both the NGO and the company, which one would not necessarily expect given the fact that they are both serving the advancement of energy access in Malawi. Despite the frustrations, it has also given me an opportunity to learn a lot about how things work specifically in Malawi.

Where are you rolling out your projects?

We are not restricted in terms of location, but the majority of our engagement when it comes to field projects is currently in the southern and central regions due to the great population pressure on forests and energy access.

How many people have benefited from the project?

This is hard to answer in short; it would need to be broken down by all projects and indirect benefits of our network facilitation and information sharing and transparency enhancing function.

What fascinates you about working with Malawians?

If I am to pick some few aspects, I would say their general happiness and tendency to keep good faith and patience in complicated situations. Most of my friends here also taught me a lot of lessons on keeping a rather constructive approach to problems and not wasting time on fighting.

What makes you happy about working on this project?

My main reason for going on every day is the smile of a healthy child in a clean energy house or talking to a person who has been able to transform their lives because of the learning or the linkages we have been able to provide to them or the organisations that have empowered them.

What are your plans?

We are in the process of setting up a private support organisation with friends in Germany to cover the necessary costs to start or back up new or smaller creative projects that don’t yet get other financial support, and to establish a revolving energy micro-loan fund. RENAMA is also trying to establish partnerships with different organisations that find our endeavours worthwhile.

Imagine, a girl coming home from school and telling his mother “Mummy, did you know we actually don’t have to walk around so many hours to collect firewood? We can make a cookstove to use much less firewood every day, I learned in school today how to make it, it takes only some clay and it can last us for more than a year!”. Now imagin a boy coming home to his father: “ Daddy, let’s go to the market buy some wires and some other old pieces, and get some bamboo form the river. I learned how we can make our own windmill and bicycle generator to charge our battery for phones and lights, so I can study in the night for my exams and you can save the time for charging the phone at the far trading centre for the farm!”