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HAMDALLAYE CASE STUDY History Hamdallaye is a historic village about 40 kilometres from Mopti en route to Bamako.

It was founded in 1818 by Skou Amadou to become the capital of the Peulh Empire of Macina. At the time, it was a city of approximately 600,000 people with 60 neighborhoods and fortified by a wall 5600 m long. Skou Amadou was a strong Muslim and founded his empire on principles of Islam and democracy and provided education free to all people. He built the biggest mosque in the region in Hamdallaye where about 750 Koranic schools could be found in the village. The village was razed by El Hadj Oumar Tall, who conquered the village in 1862 and built a fortress on the remains. However, the remains are still considered a holy site for Peulh Muslims and receive a large number of pilgrims every year. Present The present village, a short walk from the historic ruins, consists of two neighborhoods: a Peulh and a Bella neighborhood. Agriculture is the primary activity of the villagers where crops grown include rice, millet, sorghum, nib, and peanuts. Secondary activities include animal husbandry, fishing, gardening, crafts, and petty commerce. Islam is the only religion practiced in the village and since the village is an important religious site for the Muslim Peulh, it is also home to many Koranic schools and students. The Koranic school teachers, Marabous, live from the contributions students, Garibous, pay for their educations that are typically gained from donations of money and food by the generous public. Development Investment In the interests of supporting the historic nature of the village and to show its devotion to Islam, the current government has invested heavily in Hamdallaye by building a new mosque to replace the old one that had burnt down and by pledging to provide electricity for the villagers. In 2005, the lAgence Malienne pour le Dveloppement de lEnergie Domestique et lElectrification Rurale (AMADER) in partnership with Plastique Gagnon olien (PGE) of Canada installed an electrical network powered by a 20 kilowatt windmill. PGE, through funding from CIDA, contributed the windmill and electronic components including batteries that when fully charged provide 2 days of power, at a cost of $240,000 CDN. The Canadians also threw in an electric stove made in Quebec with 6 burners and an oven to help cook when pilgrims arrive. AMADER contributed the electrical wiring and hookups to 100 homes and 1.5 km of public lighting at a cost of $100,000 CDN. AMADER is funded through the World Bank.

Battery-back up power for Hamdallaye

State-of-the-art electrical equipment for the windmill

State-of-the-art electrical equipment for the windmill

State-of-the-art electrical equipment for the windmill

Hamdallaye villagers, womens committee members, and MFP customers

The operator for the MFP (left) and for the electrical network (right)

The electrical network

Household lighting by the electrical network

Problems The village had problems with the lighting from the beginning. It appears as though the system was never able to provide enough power to light all of the lights. Then, about 6 months after the equipment was installed by PGE technicians, the windmill stopped working. In fact, all three windmill blades had been broken in half and were not repairable since no one knew how to repair them. After biking the 12 kilometres to the closest phone, the operator contacted AMADER who contacted PGE. PGE sent their technicians from Canada to dismantle the blades. They now sit in the power house. It appears as though, in a flurry of government pressure, the AMADER technicians conducted wind tests during harmattan winds and the results showed that there was adequate wind for a windmill. Unfortunately, the yearly mean wind speed for the area is around 1.5 m/s, the minimum speed required to turn the windmill but not enough to power the networks 40 private lights and 40 public lights year round. In addition, the winds in Mali are particularly prone to picking up a lot of sand. Thus the bearings of the windmill were likely clogged with sand, causing the blades to stop turning and rendering them vulnerable to the next high wind event an event that caused the blades to shear off at about 1/4 of their length from the rotor.

The remaining components of the windmill and the powerhouse.

The broken windmill blades.

Digging a little deeper Looking back at the events leading up to the abandoning of the windmill, it seems very apparent that it would be left unused. When the windmill was first installed, the villagers told the technicians that they would never pay the 500 FCFA they were supposed to for the electricity they didnt have enough money nor did they see it as a priority. Thus they were not at all concerned when the windmill broke, firstly because they didnt know how to fix it and secondly because they didnt want to fix it. Thus there was no ownership of the equipment nor capacity exchange for maintaining or repairing the equipment.

Unfortunately, the story doesnt stop there. When the AMADER technicians arrived after the windmill was dismantled, they proposed a new solution to the problem: instead of fixing the windmill, they proposed to the villagers that they would get MFP Mali to install a multifunctional platform that would power an alternator that would in turn power the existing electrical network. The windmill was a flagship project for AMADER and they couldnt allow it to die so quickly. The MFP was installed a few months later. Digging even deeper When the MFP was installed by MFP Mali, it became apparent that the villagers were not going to pay any more than 500 FCFA for electricity produced by the equipment the rate that was proposed for the windmill powered network. In order for the MFP to be profitable and to ensure adequate funds for fuel, maintenance, and repair, the most often quoted cost per bulb is 1000 FCFA, or twice what the villagers were prepared to pay. Shortly after the lighting network was back on line, the womens management committee ran out of money to pay for diesel to run system. So the lighting network was completely shut down. What was left unsaid was that the villagers would only pay 500 FCFA (and some nothing at all) because the majority of the villagers were either marabous or garibous, who rely on donations of gracious believers and they could only afford that amount. More importantly, one woman mentioned after a tour of the village that after all the investment in this electrical system, what the village really needed was year-round access to clean water. The shallow soil layer didnt hold water so their wells had to be dug into the bedrock, a very arduous job. Thus many wells were too shallow and dried up after the rains subsided. Thus the electrical system, while potentially beneficial for another village, did not suit Hamdallayes needs at all. In fact, the villagers were more concerned and needed access to water not electricity. Water is a fundamental need while electricity is seen very often as a luxury. Unfortunately, the village was not included in the process, resulting in over $500,000 CDN of unused equipment and a village suffering from beneficiary fatigue and mistrust.

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