Investing in a Human-scale Operating Model to Grow Local Prosperity

This example from Eneo Cameroon builds upon the Project Transformer principle of: "Think Big. Start Small.“

There are undoubtedly big challenges and big projects ahead for Eneo, Cameroon’s public-private electrical utility. For instance, while Eneo has been able to connect close to 100,000 new households and businesses to the electricity network each year, there still remains the mission of electrifying the homes and workplaces of half of Cameroon’s 25.6 million people who do not yet have access to electricity. While rural electrification is improving but remains low, 56% of Cameroonians live in urban settings and the cities are expanding. For example, Douala (the country’s largest city at 3.65 million people) added 1.5 million citizens between 2008-2018, increasing the demand for housing, roads, transportation, public services, private businesses’ offerings … and electricity.

How best to respond to this need? While still investing in large infrastructure projects, Eneo modified its approach, implementing a creative “human-scale” operating model to respond directly to this growing community demand for access to electricity that will fuel neighbourhood development and local prosperity. Focused on improving quality of life for citizens in the near term, this Eneo model includes a number of initiatives that focus on specific customer and community needs. We have decreased service setup costs for customers on social assistance. Paperwork requirements have been reduced for new connection requests. Eneo is subsidizing (in part or in whole) network extension requests from neighbourhood committees and local development associations. And we are updating inner-city electrical infrastructure in response to urban population growth and housing densification – as single family homes are replaced with multi-unit highrise dwellings that increase power needs and stress the legacy infrastructure.

For the last two years, the majority of Eneo investment in electricity networks on the outskirts of large cities and in remote areas began with formal requests from local development committees  ?  each representing hundreds of households and potential entrepreneurs. The previous energy supply in these communities (if any existed at all) was typically precarious, improvised by inexpert hands, and dangerous. The local committees now had the opportunity to resolve these risky electricity situations: a) without needing to raise all the necessary financing themselves, and b) with a power company that was open to collaboration.

Further, in Douala’s neighbourhoods experiencing rapid population growth, the electrical network extensions that have benefited from this model’s lower-cost or no-cost access have brought secure, good quality power to participating communities. This has paved the way for the development of many socio-economic activities, growing prosperity, and improved quality of life in the beneficiary communities including new homes, shops, grocery stores and pharmacies, medical clinics, carpentry and repair workshops, restaurants, event spaces, sports facilities, children's centres, schools, etc.

This approach, based on a human-scale operating model and collaboration between Eneo and the communities we serve, puts social progress and the basic right for everyone to access secure and reliable electricity at the heart of what we do. It also helps Eneo to continue to grow its business and reinvest in electrical infrastructure and services development for Cameroon.