From Somalia’s polluted streets, an entrepreneur seeks bravery in the corridors of Cop31

Detailed summary

She and Mumin have been as brave in their personal lives as they are bold in their entrepreneurial endeavours, Ahmed having moved her family and children back to Somalia from…

There are 75,000 tuk tuks in Mogadishu, spewing choking petrol fumes into the Somali capital’s air, filling its streets with unrelenting noise and driving up carbon emissions.

Only four women are licensed to drive them and one, Fadumo Ahmed, is planning a revolution.

Ahmed (32) and her business partner, Hassan Mumin (31), have set up eBajaaj, a social enterprise that aims to electrify the tuk tuk fleet.

They have 20 converted tuk tuks on the streets, the three-wheeled passenger vehicles stripped of their petrol motors to carry battery packs instead.

Their goal is to convert 5,000 – to start with anyway. “I’m an entrepreneur but also a climate activist,” Ahmed says.

She’s trying to get the attention of the many banks, investment houses and financial advisers that circle the corridors, often talking the talk about investing in the green transition but slow to put their money into transformative projects.

“We approached local banks but it’s a new technology in a fragile market,” Mumin says. “The risk is too high for them.”

So here’s their pitch. A tuk tuk driver pays $15 (€13.41) a day to fuel his vehicle and $20 twice a month for an oil change.

“He is going home with $2-3 a day,” says Ahmed. “It’s not enough. People are hungry.”

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Irish Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.