Chafi Sani Laoualiis is a 32-year-old entrepreneur from Niger whose company, IPREN, provides solutions to key socio-economic issues impacting African rural communities by leveraging renewable energy.
Moved by the challenges faced by family members living in the village while wanting to pursue his dream of creating sustainable solutions that could boost the livelihoods of people living in remote rural areas, Chafi quit a stable situation with a government position to found IPREN.
His company developed a solar kit that combines a telephone charging station, a fan to keep cool in the desert heat and two lights that children could use to complete their homework at night.
Building on the success of this first product, IPREN then developed a solar cart with a portable refrigerator. This solution provided people living in rural communities with a way to keep food and other perishables from spoiling during transport.
Chafi also recognized the challenges that rural women faced in watering their crops in the field and tending to their community gardens due to water scarcity. He led IPREN to develop “Smart-O,” a system that leverages solar power to remotely control the irrigation of multiple fields via mobile phone.
Over 700 women and young people are using “Smart-O,” leveraging the system to keep their crops watered while getting additional time to care for their children or start small businesses to improve their livelihoods.
Understanding the limited availability of funds in these rural communities and wanting to make the solutions he developed as accessible as possible, Chafi worked with private sector partners, NGOs, and micro-credit institutions to establish affordable financing options.
IPREN products have contributed to tackling climate change across the communities they are being used by reducing carbon emissions and reclaiming arable land from the desert, but they have also helped create jobs and protect the livelihoods of about 750 families using them.
Building on its successes in Niger, IPREN is currently expanding across Africa, with representatives already established in Burkina Faso and C?te d'Ivoire, as well as the prospect of opening additional offices in Djibouti and Kenya.
When he recently participated in the 2023 United Nations Economic and Social Council Youth Forum at 缅北禁地Headquarters in New York, Chafi shared his vision that “solutions are there, it is for us to identify the problems we would like to tackle and identify creative solutions to address them, particularly those related to the primary needs of rural populations.”
He wants to inspire young people to consider?starting their businesses, generating value, creating employment, and identifying solutions to problems impacting their communities.
Chafi is one of the many young Africans who continue to demonstrate through their actions that Africa can lead in tackling global challenges, such as climate change, by providing localized solutions developed and made from the continent.
Adapted from a French article that was originally published on .