LocationsHow clean energy through the Productive Uses of Electricity is changing the lives of farming communities in Zambia's Eastern Province
Sun, Soil, and Something New
April 19, 2026
A beneficiary of the Productive Uses of Electricity project arranging freshly harvested crop of tomatoes, made possible through solar-powered irrigation support.
Photo by: Mulapwa Mukopole/UNDP Zambia
Every morning for years, Elizabeth Phiri woke up knowing exactly what the first hours of her day would look like. The walk to the stream. The buckets. The slow, heavy trip back. Time and again this process continued because the crops always needed more water than one trip could carry. It was the kind of work that wore you down quietly, season after season, without ever quite being enough.
That changed in June 2025, when her community in Kalichero got access to a solar-powered drip irrigation system. Now, Elizabeth starts her mornings differently. "Things are now easier," she says. "We simply switch on the drip lines." It sounds like a small thing. But for a woman who spent years carrying water on her head before sunrise, it is everything.
Kalichero is part of the PAZESA Horticultural Community Action Group, a cooperative of 41 members spread across three communities in Chipangali District, Eastern Zambia. 28 of those members are women, and it is largely their labour, their patience, and their knowledge of the land that holds the group together. In June 2025, PAZESA received a USD 25,000 grant through the Productive Uses of Electricity Project, a UNDP initiative under the Climate Promise that helps rural communities adopt clean energy systems for farming and income generation.
With the grant, the group installed an 11kV off-grid solar system, sank six water boreholes, set up drip irrigation across their shared fields, and bought two solar-powered freezers. The land they farm, once dry and difficult, now stretches across 320 hectares producing cucumbers, tomatoes, maize, Irish potatoes, and William bananas, all growing steadily under a system that did not exist two years ago.
The results have followed quickly. Since June 2025, Kalichero has earned over K380,000 (around USD 19,999.36) from cucumber and tomato sales. The maize harvest in December 2025 brought in K250,000 (around USD 13, 146) more. The banana plants, still young, were estimated to yield K300,000 (approximately USD 15,784.23) every quarter from February 2026 onwards. These are not small numbers for communities that once struggled to get enough water to keep their crops alive.
What is striking about PAZESA is not just what they have built, but how creatively they are using it. The solar-powered freezers, bought to keep fish and farm produce fresh for the market, have become something more. The women use them to make and sell ice blocks and freezits to their neighbours, turning a piece of farming equipment into a steady side income. The 15 fishponds, also powered by the solar system, now hold over 15,000 tilapia, giving families another source of food and earnings that did not exist before. When you have spent your life finding ways to make things work with very little, having the right tools does not just solve one problem. It opens up a whole set of possibilities you could not see before.
In the neighbouring community of Chingaipe, eight members have been producing cucumbers, beans, lemons, and oranges using irrigation powered by two solar panels and inputs from PAZESA. Together, they have earned K65,000 (around USD 3,418.16), and for each member, the share-out of that money has meant something specific and real. For Mary Banda, it meant a house.
"I used my share of around K19,000 (approximately USD 994.11) to build a house, buy household items, and food for my grandchildren," she says, smiling as she says it.
There is a quiet power in that story. A woman farming on a small piece of land in rural Zambia earned enough, through her own effort, to build a home and provide for her family. She did not wait for an opportunity; she created it. She planted, nurtured, harvested, and sold. In doing so, she built more than a house, she built stability, dignity, and a future. That is what this project truly means in the lives of the people it reaches.
The third group, Thazwela, is the newest, formed in February 2025 with 12 members and one hectare of land. What makes their model interesting is how it is designed to keep giving after the first grant runs out. Profits from each harvest go into a shared fund that helps the next group get started, so the benefits keep moving through the community rather than stopping with the first recipients. They expect to earn over K40,000 (approximately USD 2,105.7) from tomatoes and K12,000 (around USD 631.69) from other vegetables, income they plan to invest in a fence, a borehole, and a van to reach the market.
Paul Phiri, who founded PAZESA, sees this as just the beginning. By 2030, he wants 10,000 households across the Eastern Province of Zambia connected through a network where each community is a small centre for farming, earning, and sharing knowledge with neighbours. It is an ambitious goal. But looking at what three communities have built in less than two years with a single grant and a few solar panels, it does not feel unreachable.
Late in the afternoon, when the light softens and the heat eases off a little, the Kalichero fields are still busy. Women move through the rows, checking the plants, talking about what to plant next season. The irrigation lines run quietly in the background, doing the work that buckets used to do.
The land here is the same land it has always been. The sun is the same sun. But what is happening on these fields, and in the lives of the people who farm them, is genuinely new. And it is only just getting started.
The Productive Uses of Electricity Project is implemented by UNDP Zambia under the Climate Promise Initiative, supporting Zambia's Nationally Determined Contribution through renewable energy solutions that build rural livelihoods and climate resilience.