Health & Energy Access
WHEN works collaboratively with our partners to structure and deploy blended finance vehicles to support sustainable development and women’s economic resilience at the nexus of health, gender and climate by scaling local businesses and women-led SMEs across the life science and energy value chain.
WHEN is at the forefront of designing sustainable financing solutions to address the disproportionate burden that climate change places on women, particularly in vulnerable communities. WHEN recognizes that women often bear the brunt of climate-related impacts such as water scarcity, food insecurity, and natural disasters. Through strategic partnerships with international donors, financial institutions, and grassroots organizations, WHEN develops innovative financing models that empower women to adapt and thrive in the face of environmental challenges. By promoting investments in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and climate-resilient infrastructure, WHEN not only mitigates the adverse effects of climate change but also enhances women’s economic opportunities and leadership in sustainable development.
Accessible energy is increasingly being recognized as a vital solution for improving health outcomes, particularly in remote and underserved areas. Energy access initiatives involve deploying decentralized power systems and mini-grids to healthcare facilities, ensuring a reliable and sustainable energy source. This energy can power essential medical equipment, provide lighting for nighttime operations, and ensure the continuous refrigeration of vaccines and medicines. By reducing dependence on unreliable grid electricity or expensive diesel generators, renewable energy enhances the operational capacity of health facilities, leading to better patient care and outcomes. Additionally, renewable energy is environmentally friendly, reducing the carbon footprint of healthcare operations and promoting broader public health benefits.
WHEN develops financial mechanisms to support the electrification of health facilities in emerging markets, with a mission to combat energy poverty and improve women’s healthcare outcomes. By financing low-cost and high-quality energy systems in local clinics and Centers of Excellence, WHEN ensures that these facilities have a reliable and sustainable source of electricity. This enables health workers to perform critical tasks, such as nighttime surgeries, powering medical equipment, connecting to internet and maintaining the cold chain for vaccines and medicines. This enhances the quality of healthcare services but also reduces operational costs by eliminating reliance on expensive and polluting diesel generators in off-grid communities.
WHEN also provides training and support to local communities to maintain and operate the energy systems, ensuring long-term sustainability. Through its efforts, WHEN is significantly improving health infrastructure in underserved regions, fostering resilience and better health outcomes for vulnerable populations.
Global Hospital Solar Surgery is an award-winning product designed by Global Hospital team to facilitate safe surgery in low-resource settings. It can be used to power any essential medical equipment up and beyond an entire operating room – ultimately improving outcomes and safety for patients, protecting expensive medical equipment, reducing operational costs for hospitals, and decreasing carbon footprints in the community.
Providing enough solar power to run any operating room, and surge protection for all the equipment in use, Solar Surgery stores surplus energy in a battery and seamlessly integrates it when needed. Even after dark, the surgical team will have more than 8 hours of normal usage before the system will finally revert to the hospital grid supply.
Installed by qualified engineers who provide local training, and with a three-year warranty, the Solar Surgery system is a ‘plug and play’ solution to crippling power outages.
