Welcome!

Hello everyone! I've created this as a forum for friends, family, and supporters to glimpse my work with a company called Eco-Fuel Africa Limited (for brevity's sake, I will hereafter refer to Eco-Fuel Africa as EFA).  My visit with EFA's founder and CEO, Sanga Moses, is taking place from January 31st- February 13th, but I am sure our work will carry us much farther into the future.

For those who don't already know, EFA is a Ugandan business that intends to replace traditional wood-based cooking fuels with alternative energy sources.  Most Ugandans, and indeed much of the developing world, cook over open fires or primitive stoves that use either wood or wood charcoal.  This wood is traditionally taken from virgin tropical forests, contributing to rampant destruction of forest resources.  At current rates, the entire African continent will be devoid of forest by the year 2050.

EFA aims to address this problem by making charcoal from widely available agricultural waste.  Their model is predicated on loaning farmers the technology to make charcoal powder from crop residues.  Farmers repay the loan with a portion of charcoal production, which EFA consolidates, packages, and distributes for local sale.  This creates sustainable jobs and income streams in poor communities while producing a cheaper, cleaner-burning product that does not deplete valuable forest resources.

I hope my visit will help me (and through this blog, my fantastic and generous supporters) understand the true value of EFA's innovation.  Today's developing world faces explosive population growth, corrupt and unresponsive governments, crumbling economic infrastructure, massive natural resource depletion, and irreversible global warming.  In my estimation, these elements are conspiring and conflating to send the developing world (especially sub-Saharan Africa) into a downward spiral.  EFA is an example of a paradigm shift in social enterprise that considers economic progress in the context of greater socio-ecologic systems.  In the philosophy of natural capitalism, this has been termed the next industrial revolution- the realization that all of our livelihoods (and those of our children) depend on the same finite, shrinking pool of natural resources.

Thank you for joining myself, Sanga Moses, and Eco-Fuel Africa in the quest to change the trajectory of human development at an unprecedented scale.  It sure will be an interesting journey :)