Lesotho’s greener mobile network

The mobile phone sector has been famously dynamic in Africa, with a history of innovation that includes mobile banking, citizen reporting, and some pioneering mobile infrastructure in Lesotho.

Lesotho is a small and mountainous country, beloved of geography students for being an ‘enclave nation’ – it is bordered on all sides by South Africa. In 2012, the mobile phone company Vodacom began to install green base stations – off-grid mobile towers that were powered by solar and wind energy, with bat...