Monrovia – Stakeholders in the Energy sector have met in Monrovia to validate the findings of off-grid solar market assessment in Liberia. The Meeting was a one-day meeting that brought together stakeholders in the energy sector specifically solar energy.
At the meeting, stakeholders validated a report on access to electricity in the West African region. The Thursday event was about finalizing what was started in 2017 where series of concerns were raised at a workshop about the sector.
According to Mr. Nanlee Johnson, Senior Analyst of ECREE, ECOWAS has received funding from the World Bank that is being channeled through the Africa Development Bank geared toward boosting and creating that atmosphere where people will have access to Money for energy projects.
Out of the 406 million residing in West Africa and the Sahel Region, it is estimated that 208 million inhabitants have no access to electricity, about 70 percent of whom live in rural areas. Due to the strategic importance of energy in achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction in the ECOWAS and Sahel region.
ECREE has designed the regional off-grid Electrification project (ROGEP) whose objective is to increase access to sustainable electricity services in the ECOWAS region for households, commercial enterprises, and Public health and education facilities.
The project is funded by the World Bank, with co-financing from the clean Technology fund (CTF) and Directorate General of International Cooperation of the Government of the Netherlands.
The ROGEP will focus on supporting and developing viable business ecosystems in the project countries through a regional-initiative. To develop a regional market, the project will identify policy barriers affecting the growth of the stand-alone solar market and create awareness within the government policymakers on the benefit of removing such policy barriers as well as provide targeted support for barrier removal in challenging markets.
ECREE will implement components in partnership with national Government of 19 project countries. ECREE will follow a consultative process with its focal persons in the Ministry of energy of all project countries and other ROGEP stakeholders to implement a developed Regional Market (US$17.5Million) project.
Under the Project ECREE will strengthen regional energy access policy to influence national energy access policies of each country in a harmonized manner and provide differentiated support to entrepreneurial businesses across the enterprise development life cycle.
Also, under the project matching grants will be offered to start-up businesses to support entry of new solar businesses. This funding would be up to US$ 25,000 to assist these entrepreneurs to develop their ideas into viable businesses or develop and test market their products.