By Rasheeda Hamidu and Abbas Nazil
Sanga Moses is a Ugandan social entrepreneur and environmental innovator whose work demonstrates how an everyday agricultural waste problem can be transformed into a solution for deforestation, energy poverty and rural livelihoods.
Moses is the founder and CEO of Eco-Fuel Africa, a social enterprise that developed a way of converting agricultural waste into affordable cooking fuel. His work was born from a deeply personal encounter that changed the direction of his life and ultimately led him from banking into environmental entrepreneurship.
In 2009, while travelling from Kampala to visit his family in western Uganda, Moses encountered his 12-year-old sister carrying a heavy bundle of firewood. She had missed school because she had spent the day walking several kilometres to collect fuel for the family.
The experience forced Moses to confront the connection between energy poverty, deforestation and lost educational opportunities. He eventually left his accounting career and began searching for an alternative to dependence on firewood.
What he found was an opportunity in something that was already abundant around him: agricultural waste.
Uganda produces large quantities of agricultural residues, including materials from crops such as sugar cane, coffee and rice. Rather than allowing this waste to remain unused, Moses worked with university students to develop technology that could convert it into charcoal-like briquettes for cooking.
Eco-Fuel Africa’s model uses agricultural waste to produce cleaner-burning fuel while creating economic opportunities along the supply chain. Farmers can process agricultural residues, while local entrepreneurs—including women involved in distribution—can participate in selling the resulting fuel.
The model therefore addresses several problems simultaneously. It seeks to reduce pressure on forests, provide an alternative source of cooking energy, create income opportunities and make use of agricultural materials that might otherwise be discarded.
The environmental implications are significant. Dependence on wood fuel contributes to pressure on forests in many parts of Africa, while traditional cooking fuels can also expose households to harmful smoke.
Moses has argued that addressing deforestation requires more than telling communities to stop using wood. People need practical and affordable alternatives that meet their energy needs without forcing them to sacrifice their livelihoods.
This principle has remained central to his approach: environmental solutions must work economically if they are going to be adopted at scale.
His work has received international recognition. Moses was selected as a TED Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and Eco-Fuel Africa later won the sustainability category of Verizon’s Powerful Answers Challenge, receiving a $1 million award after competing against more than 1,800 submissions.
His story has also attracted attention because of the unusual path that brought him into environmental entrepreneurship. Moses grew up in a rural Ugandan community, became the first university graduate in his clan and initially pursued a conventional professional career before deciding to dedicate himself to solving an environmental problem he had personally witnessed.
Today, his story represents a broader lesson about African climate innovation: some of the most useful solutions do not begin in laboratories or large corporations. They can emerge from understanding how environmental problems affect ordinary households and designing businesses around practical alternatives.
NatureNews Africa recognises Sanga Moses as an Eco Personality because his work connects climate action with everyday development challenges. His journey demonstrates that tackling deforestation can also mean improving access to energy, creating livelihoods, supporting women entrepreneurs and making better use of Africa’s agricultural resources.
