By Mabinty M. Kamara
A two-day international conference on renewable energy has ended in Freetown with calls for investment in the sector.
The Mano River Union Renewable Energy and Clean Cooking Summit, which took place at the Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko Hotel, was designed to share ideas and rally investments into the sector.
In his keynote address during the opening of the event, President Julius Maada Bio spoke about the need to invest in renewables, nothing that it is a lifesaving matter as most women relied on energy sources that expose them to health risk.
“It is an imperative for all development that we address energy poverty in Sierra Leone particularly in the rural areas and generally in the sub region,” President Bio said on the first day of the session on Monday.
“The most perplexing paradox of our time is that we are starving for energy in the midst of potential plenty, with millions of tons of bio mass, thousands of rivers and water catchment areas, near perpetual sunlight, some geothermal potential and more sources of natural gas. With all of these, we have no reason to be energy poor,” he added.
The conference, the first of its kind, was organized by the Ministry of Energy in conjunction with the office of lawmaker and renewable energy specialist, Dr Kandeh Yumkella. It brought together participants from the four Mano River Union (MRU) countries and abroad.
The organisers said the meeting was aimed at identifying concrete opportunities for regional cooperation on a project level and through knowledge and data sharing, and enhancing the capabilities of national and sub-regional legislators, who have a critical role to play in scaling-up renewable energy and MRU sub-regional integration.
The sessions included ministerial roundtable with a focus on five principal themes: energy access; regional trade; energy-economic development/energy-health nexus; clean cooking; and utilities.
There were also presentations of priority projects, critical issues on the need to secure baseload power and generation planning as well as key successes and new opportunities in the respective sectors.
The participants included ministers, parliamentarians and civil society leaders from the region and beyond.
Also on the list of speakers were representatives from the United States, Germany, and the Secretary General of the Mano River Union, Medina A Wesseh.
Ms Wesseh in her statement said renewable energy and clean cooking could provide an answer to some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.
“We must use renewable energy as an economic aggregate and important parameter of development,” she said, adding: “It is at the heart of economic activity and hence the social wellbeing of the individual, the community and the nation.
“Various governments at regional levels have worked in diverse ways but the result is still unappreciable.”
The conference, according to officials, illustrated the power of collaboration between rival political interests.
Whiles thanking partners and dignitaries for honoring their invitation, Dr Yumkella emphasized on the need for more investment. He said the vision for the conference is to make it an annual dialogue.
Yumkella, a former Director General of the Vienna based United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), who later served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, was also the chief executive officer of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. He was elected Member of Parliament in 2018 and representing Constituency 062 in his northern Kambia District home town. He is also founder and chairman of The Energy Nexus Network (TENN), which is a party to the organization of this conference.
He also spoke about the need for MRU countries to work in collaboration to maximize their chance of bridging the energy gap in the sub-region.
According to him, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, three of the four MRU countries, were among the poorest energy countries in the world, with Guinea having less than 25% electrification, Liberia about 15% and Sierra Leone about 15%.
“Unless we have an integrated market we cannot survive. But now that we have interconnection, we believe that it will be an ongoing dialogue,” he said.
He added: “We want to make Sierra Leone a knowledge hub, we have the highest minigrid facilities here. We hope it will even grow more than that.”
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