Electric Motorcycles Aim to Clean African City Air

As the streets of Kampala, Uganda come to life early in the morning, Dorothy Namawejje fastens her helmet and revs the engine of her electric motorcycle. Namawejje, a single mother of two, is a taxi driver who ferries passengers around the city's frenetic roads, her bike humming quietly beneath her.

The job pays well above what she was making a few years ago as a traffic warden. But more than that, Namawejje considers herself a pioneer in a country where motorcycle taxi drivers are almost always men.

Before, I feared the road. Now, I own my future, she says.

Namawejje is one of a growing number of African women who are finding work in the fast-growing electric vehicle industry and its offshoots. For many the rapid development of the sector is opening up careers long inaccessible, like taxi driving and motorcycle repair. Along with reducing gender inequality, experts are hopeful the shift to electric two-wheelers could also help Africas cities clear their increasingly smog-filled air.

Air pollution isthe leading environmental cause of premature death, says Sheila Aggarwal Khan, the Director of the Industry and Economy Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Electrifying fleets is a vital step for improving public health and saving lives.

Motorcycles are the backbone of transit networks in many African cities. There are more than 20 million such vehicles across the continent. Most run on petrol, spitting out planet-warming greenhouse gasses along with a range of harmful chemicals, like fine particulate matter and nitrous oxide. Over a recent four-year period outdoor air pollution much of it from vehicles led to the premature deaths of more than 7,200 people in Kampala alone, found Ugandan researchers.

Motorcycles are also largely driven by men. In Uganda, for example, women make up less than 1 percent of motorcycle taxi operators.

But a UNEP-led project in Kenya and Uganda is aiming to alter that calculus. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), it has trained more than 100 women as electric motorcycle operators, mechanics and entrepreneurs. Those women include Kampalas Namawejje. The projects goal is to reduce pollution electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions while creating economic opportunities.

Homa Bay, Kenya sits across the sprawling Lake Victoria from Kampala. Here, the UNEP-backed project trained women in how to maintain solar panels and fix electric-vehicle charging infrastructure, among other things. Carine Akoth, a 27-year-old mother of two, is one of the women who passed through the programme. She learned to assemble electric motorcycles. Before this training, I had never even touched a motorbike let alone imagined assembling one, she says. She now wants to open an electric bike repair shop.

The Homa Bay centre buzzes with similar stories. Hellen Atieno, a 28-year-old single mother, found her calling as a solar energy technician.

Learning about solar panels and battery systems has opened my eyes to the world of clean energy, she says. I used to believe this field was only for men, but now I see that women can lead and excel here too.

But cultural barriers persist. In Kenya only 5 per cent of electric vehicle drivers are women. A report by UNEP partner WeTu found men often expressed discomfort with their wives working in the taxi industry, long viewed as a traditionally male field. In Homa Bay, some trainees dropped out due to family pressure.

Still, programmes like those in Homa Bay and Kampala are helping to break down stereotypes, says Liliane Felix. She is the director of non-profit organization Women Rising for Africa and creator of the UNEP-supported Women on Wheels project, which helps provide electric bikes to women in the Lake Victoria area.

We are confronting the deep-rooted gaps in gender inclusion, opening doors to real opportunities that were previously out of reach and reshaping whats possible for women in Africa, Felix says.

The transport industry is the worlds second-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gasses, following only the power sector. Demand for motorcycles is spiking across Africa a hunger Kenya and Uganda are aiming to sate with electric vehicles. In both countries, the majority of electricity comes from renewable sources, meaning electric motorcycles have a relatively low carbon footprint.

Back in Kampala Natumbwe Veronica, a single mother of five, says driving an electric motorcycle taxi has helped pay for food, shelter and her childrens school fees. Nearby, tour guide Nattabi Ruth, who also drives an electric two-wheeler, says projects like those backed by UNEP are helping to shatter stereotypes.