By Politico staff writer
President Julius Maada Bio has discussed with Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, an American private philanthropic medical research and arts funding organisation, on possibilities around sustainable energy in Sierra Leone. The meeting took place in Washington in the United States.
State House Media and Communications Unit, in a statement says the engagement between the two men on Wednesday 14th December, was a follow up to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in May this year between the Government of Sierra Leone and the Rockefeller Foundation, through the Global Energy Alliance For People and Planet, GEAPP, geared towards collaborating in increasing access to electricity and accelerating the energy transition in Sierra Leone.
President Bio reportedly stressed the need to focus on the agricultural sector while making a case for prioritised intervention in the energy sector to support the former, noting that these sectors could stimulate industrialisation at rural community level.
“The Government and GEAPP should collectively come up with projects that will ensure effective development’’, the president said. He said a Sierra Leone National Energy Transition Programme geared towards the Rockefeller Foundation’s GEAPP was developed as a result of the earlier trips by the foundation to Sierra Leone.
“The vision of this Programme is within the next 7 to 10 years, this alliance should lead to new or improved electricity access for at least 1Million people through driving increased investments in Grid-connected renewables, distributed renewable energy (DRE) and corresponding investments in productive uses of electricity particularly in the rural areas,” Bio said.
According to State House,President Bio also emphasisied that the goal was to produce 300MW in new regeneration and 600 mini-grids, which would help to reduce the carbon emission by 1.2 million ton of GHG annually and create about 1.3 million new jobs enabled by renewable sources.
It is expected that powering the rural communities will see the reduction of mini-grid tariffs to less than US$0.30 to improve affordability, and power agriculture, provide agricultural and enterprise equipment and support small businesses.
The Rockefeller Foundation was said to have in the past undertaken several trips to Sierra Leone during which it assessed the energy challenges and met with key players for constructive and realistic energy strategies to be developed for the country.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (16/12/22)
