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Hydropower is an important renewable energy resource worldwide. However, its development is accompanied with environmental and social drawbacks. Issues of degradation of the environment and climate change can negatively impact hydropower generation. A sustainable hydropower project is possible, but needs proper planning and careful system design to manage the challenges. Well-planned hydropower projects can contribute to supply sustainable energy. An up-to-date knowledge is necessary for energy planners, investors, and other stakeholders to make informed decisions concerning hydropower projects. This is basically a review paper. Apart from using expert knowledge, the authors have also consulted extensively from journals, conference papers, reports, and some documents to get secondary information on the subject. The paper has reviewed the world energy scenario and how hydropower fits in as the solution to the global sustainable energy challenge. Issues of hydropower resource availability, technology, environment and climate change have been also discussed. Hydropower is sensitive to the state of environment, and climate change. With global climate change, though globally the potential is stated to slightly increase, some countries will experience a decrease in potential with increased risks. Adaptation measures are required to sustainably generate hydropower. These are also discussed in the paper.

The importance of renewable energy such as small hydropower for sustainable power generation in relation to its capacity to contribute towards alleviating acute shortage of rural electricity supply in the sub-Saharan African region has been discussed. A relatively comprehensive small hydropower technology review has been presented. Rural electricity supply scenario in the region has been presented and, in general, the region has very low electricity access levels coupled with various challenges. Small hydropower technology has been discussed as one of the promising decentralised power generation system for rural electricity supply in the region. Despite challenges in data acquisition, this paper has shown that the SSA has significant hydropower resources, but the level of installation is very low. Challenges hampering SHP technology development in the region have been identified and discussed, such as those concerning technology, climate change, finance, and policy. This is basically a paper where the authors consulted a wide range of literature including journals, conference proceedings, and reports as well as expert knowledge in the area. It is hoped that this paper contributes to the information base on SHP technology which is quite lacking in the region.