Despite the economic strides that many of its nations have made
in recent years, Africa is still, in a literal sense, a dark
continent. No country there represents this more clearly than
Liberia, where only 2,000 homes in the nation of 4 million are
hooked up to the electrical grid. But where others see a problem
too big to solve, Richard Fahey sees a hopeful future, and a
burgeoning commercial market for solar energy. “Liberia
certainly is dark in terms of light, but not in human capital,”
said Fahey, a 2010 fellow of Harvard’s Advanced Leadership
Initiative. This spring, Fahey will launch the Liberia Energy
Network, a large-scale solar power project. If he reaches his
goal of putting sun-powered lanterns in the hands of a million
Liberians by next year, he will have proven, he said, that
socially conscious industry can thrive in the impoverished
nation. Fahey, a retired environmental lawyer from Ohio and a
Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia in the 1960s, had a chance to
return to the fragile country in 2009.