Taiwan will expand a program providing portable lamps powered by solar technology for children in Africa to encourage them to read and stay in school, Taiwan's president said, according to AP. The statement by Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday underscores Taiwan's attempts to move away from a money-grounded diplomacy as it engages the relative handful of countries that still recognize it instead of the Chinese government in Beijing. Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. Since then they have been caught up in a no-holds-barred struggle _ often revolving around liberal financial incentives _ to win the allegiance of countries around the world. The lamp program, started in Burkino Faso, involves installing a solar panel at a school that can be used to recharge small, portable lamps with battery times of about four hours. The lamps encourage reading, and the need to recharge them at school keeps the children returning to classes, Ma said. At a meeting with Burkina Faso Prime Minister Tertius Zongo in Taipei, Ma said the solar lamp program signals Taiwan's friendship and that he hopes to expand it to other countries in Africa. He did not name them. Taiwan began producing the solar lamps after becoming aware that many children in Burkina Faso read by street lamp at night because they have no access to electrical power. Only 5 percent of the country's 15 million people have direct access to the power grid. Last month Taiwan delivered the first batch of 1,000 solar lamps to two primary schools in Burkina Faso. The lamps, which use a lithium-iron battery and sell for $10 each, were purchased by the country's Education Ministry. Taiwan is now drawing up an aid program to offer the lamps to other low income countries, said Tsao Hsing-chien, head of the Vocational Training Institute, which designed the lamps together with local battery and LED light producers. «From Africa to Asia, there are still many children who have no access to lighting at home,» Tsao said. He said the solar panel and battery system has a life of 10 years, enough for a child to use from primary to junior high school, and that the lamps are specially built to withstand rain and dust in the countryside. Burkina Faso is one of only 23 countries _ most of them small and impoverished _ that still recognize Taiwan. By contrast more than 200 have diplomatic relations with China. In recent years the island has engaged in so-called «checkbook diplomacy» to retain the allies it has in the face of Chinese inroads. But the policy has attracted widespread criticism for concentrating on financing large building and infrastructure projects which often go unfinished, because funding frequently ends up in the pockets of local politicians.
