Ace News Desk – Twenty kilometers outside Antsirabe, Madagascar, the Mateliona Betafo health center provides essential care to a rural community.

For years, midwife Lovatiana Rasoarinjanahary delivered babies at night by candlelight, torch or the fading battery of a mobile phone.

That changed in 2024, when a stand-alone solar system, part of a World Bank Group-supported project that electrified 500 rural health facilities across Madagascar, brought electricity to the health center for the first time. Today, health workers can turn on the lights for nighttime deliveries, sterilize equipment and keep vaccines safely refrigerated.

Making these improvements required more than just a flip of a light switch. Hidden inside the health center’s walls, equipment, and energy systems are materials most patients will never see: copper and lithium.

The copper and lithium behind everyday life travel a long way from the ground to their final uses. 

This journey can create jobs, skills, and economic growth along the way.

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