ECOWAS moves to improve electricity supply to member states

The World Bank and ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, ECREE, have designed a regional renewable energy project, the Regional Off-Grid Electrification Project, ROGEP, aimed at increasing access to sustainable electricity supply, most especially in the rural areas of member states. ECOWAS Parliament This step is on acknowledging the strategic importance of energy in achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction in ECOWAS and Sahel region. This was made known at a one- day workshop organized by Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS and the World Bank, supported by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing in Abuja, with the theme: “Promoting Private Investment Standalone Solar Systems in West Africa and the Sahel”. 

The Permanent Secretary, Power, Louis Edozien, who represented the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, said that stakeholders in the power sector should move from policy formulation and focus more on policy implementation in the electricity value chain, emphasizing, that this would improve the living standards of rural dwellers in the ECOWAS sub region. According to him, “We want to move from talking to acting, and to achieve that, we need to tackle manpower issues, funding gaps and materials’’. The Minister said the Regional off -Grid Electrification Project (ROGEP) was designed by ECOWAS and World Bank to increase access to sustainable electricity services in the ECOWAS region for household, commercial enterprises and public facilities.


(Vanguard)