Stakeholders Call for State of Emergency in West Africa's Energy Sector

5 October 2010
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Abidjan - Cote d'Ivoire — The ECOWAS Commission should declare a decade of emergency sufficiency that will encourage the government of Member States to focus on the development of this sector as a strategic priority because of its catalytic role in regional development.

These were among the measures proposed by participants at the 3rd ECOWAS Business Forum which ended on Friday, 1st October 2010 in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire and which focused on the theme "Harnessing energy resources for the competiveness of West Africa's economy". These measures will enable the region address the supply-side constraints hampering energy access in the region where only 30 per cent of the population have access to energy but demand is expected to significantly grow by 7.6 per cent to 22,000 MW in 2020 from 6,500 MW in 2003. The measures proposed by the participants will enable the region holistically address the dimensions of the challenge through initiatives that will promote energy self-sufficiency, address the business and policy environment issues as well as the financing mechanism.

This calls for the expeditious implementation of the priority projects of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) in the areas of power generation and the interconnection of grids, the adoption of a regional energy mix that exploits all the region's energy resources to meet the fast growing demand, the development of minimum renewable energy targets and the strengthening of the Centre for Renewable Energy based in Cape Verde. Other proposals will enable the region address the business and policy environment and calls for the creation of a regional framework to guarantee private sector investment in the sector, the implementation of capacity building programmes, the development and enforcement of local environmentally- friendly and energy efficient materials, the unbundling of the energy sector to private sector investors, the strengthening of mechanisms for public private partnerships and the ratification of the ECOWAS Energy Protocol. Among the other proposals are the provision of incentives to encourage investment in independent power projects.

The participants also made suggestions to address the fund constraints against investment in the sector, including ECOWAS facilitation of donor support for such projects, the injection of funds in the rehabilitation of maintenance of existing infrastructure, the mobilize of local resources and the development of financing mechanisms for energy projects, particularly for rural electrification. Some 450 participants attended the three-day event which ended with an awards night to reward innovation and entrepreneurship and another prize for excellence in the implementation of the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons which was won by Burkina Faso.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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