Electric Co-op Today

BALTIMORE—When Garry Mbiad’s plane approached Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport in mid-July as part of an NRECA International Programs project, the first thing he noticed was what he didn’t see.

Garry Mbiad of Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative provides a first-hand account of NRECA International’s work in Uganda to the Regions 1 & 4 meeting. (Photo By: Steven Johnson)

Light.

“In the U.S., when you land at night, you see a lot of lights on the ground,” Mbiad said. “Finally, right before we landed, you could start seeing lights. The difference between the two countries in landing at night was evidence in my mind about the big job ahead in the rural electrification of Africa.”

For two weeks this summer, Mbiad, general manager and CEO of Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative, New Concord, Ohio, and three other co-op representatives from the United States worked with electric cooperatives and rural electrification officials in the impoverished country of Uganda in east-central Africa.

They were impressed that Ugandan authorities hope to bring electrification to all the nation’s rural areas by 2035.

But there is no mistaking the difficulty in realizing that goal.

“Africa in general is the last great challenge for rural electrification,” Mbiad said during a Sept. 7 presentation on “Building a Case for the Cooperative Difference” at the Regions 1 & 4 meeting.

NRECA International started its Uganda initiative in November 2010. The activity is funded jointly by the Rural Electrification Agency of Uganda and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Mbiad was joined by another volunteer, Dennis Hill, executive vice president and general manager of the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, as well as by Kent Wick and Bob Ellinger of NRECA International.

Their task was to teach Co-op Management and Governance 101, including board and management duties and finances.  Leaders from the nation’s two rural electric co-ops and the country’s rural electrification agency participated in the three-day training session.

The Ugandans were like a sponge, soaking it all up, Mbiad said. “They peppered us with questions. We could have gone on for three more days.”

Only about 5 percent of rural Uganda is electrified, though the government had hoped to reach the 10 percent mark by 2010. A field trip to one co-op, Bundibugyo Electric Cooperative Society near the country’s western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, quickly showed Mbiad why.

He thought he had a challenge managing power back home in the hilly and heavily wooded terrain of southeastern Ohio. “I had no clue. Their terrain is very mountainous. The vegetation is thick. The roads are few and they wouldn’t classify as roads in the state and they’re not very well maintained.”

The co-op has to rent a truck to set poles by hand, Mbiad said. The landlocked country relies on oil for some its generation, so it is subject to fluctuations in the price of the fuel. The average BECS member—the two-year-old co-op has 1,000— pays about 25 cents per kilowatt-hour, and often has to endure outages of up to 12 hours a day because of load shedding or construction issues.

Yet Mbiad said he encountered a positive attitude among co-op officials who were well aware of their responsibility to the membership. The co-op manager showed people how to wire their homes properly and economically so they could have outlets and lights. As the chairman of the BECS board put it to Mbiad: “We cannot fail.”

“In short, I found a wonderful proud people who have a rough life,” Mbiad concluded.

He said the stakes could not be higher. The famine that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in east Africa could be mitigated in part through electrification that provides for basic needs, such as pumped water and food storage. He hopes that the NRECA International project in Uganda can serve as a model for the rest of rural Africa.

“I was humbled about how much Uganda has been able to accomplish with so little resources,” Mbiad said. “They are proud of what they do. They are dedicated. They adapt and innovate. They do not want us to do the job for them; they do want our help.”

Related content: Regions 1 & 4 meeting

Tags: International, Regional Meetings