A Systemic Approach to Addressing the Complexity of Energy Problems

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual framework for using energy as a vehicle for holistic development to address: poverty, gender discrimination, community involvement in decision making on social, economic, and environmental issues. The approach is systemic and participatory ironically, energy is always seen or considered in fragmentation from other areas and as a technical subject, without considering it in less literal and more metaphorical terms as an end and means of communication. Energy should be seen holistically. Holism is based on a profound understanding of the interconnectedness of the various parts and their relationship to the whole. The point made in this paper is that, by adding energy to the development plan, we solve nothing unless we also consider community mobilization, participatory approaches, and the role of gender in development. Pradhan's research in Nepal has demonstrated that if one thinks of energy only in technical terms and development projects strive to provide more electricity, the interventions can paradoxically just add more drudgery to the lives of women, unless policies consider energy within the context of the whole social, political, economic, and environmental system. Energy provision is more than merely a technical intervention. Participation uses human energy and the creative energy of human beings in a different way. The heart of participatory development is co-creating (in the sense used by Reason, 1988, 2002) understanding based on communication that is generative in the sense used by Paulo Freire. Generative understanding provides a different kind of energy, based on resonance. So this is a play on words when we place energy in a technical sense and energy in a human sense at the center of development. Also, physicists would argue that energy needs to be considered far wore widely as a basis for communication and life. Some also argue that energy is the basis of all organic and inorganic matter in the universe; it is the communication across subatomic matter.