Capacity Development

Capacity development is one of the main pillars of activities implemented by ECREEE. Lack of knowledge and technical skills are major barriers to the dissemination and usage of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in the ECOWAS region.  

As a first step, the Centre executed a regional capacity needs assessment in cooperation with three local universities (2iE from Burkina Faso, KNUST from Ghana, UNICV from Cape Verde). The study identified existing capacity building institutions, programs and gaps in the fifteen ECOWAS countries and proposed a plan of action for a regional capacity development strategy of ECREEE.  

The formulated strategy aims at strengthening the capacities of a broad range of private and public key market enablers in the sustainable energy sector. These include public institutions (e.g. ministries, municipalities, regulators, rural electrification agencies), investors and financial institutions, universities and training institutions, as well as local companies (e.g. utilities, project developers, manufactures, installation and maintenance service providers).

Under the Strategy, the Centre is implementing the following activities:

• organization of regional training workshops on various sustainable energy aspects and technologies (e.g. planning, installation, maintenance, economics, policy, financing, project development, resource assessment);
• organization of train-the-trainers workshops/programs in cooperation with local universities and institutions and facilitate national follow-up trainings;
• promotion of regional sustainable energy research programs and establishment of academic exchange programs;
• promotion of south-south and north south knowledge transfer and fundraising for capacity building activities;
• sharing of knowledge and information on good and/or poor practices to support implementation of sustainable energy investments or programs

The ECREEE Business Plan aims to chieve the following results by 2016:

• Execute 80% of the Regional Capacity Building Program based on the Capacity Needs Assessment
• Train 500 stakeholders across identified target groups
• Conduct 15 training workshops
• Train 30 local institutions by applying a ‘train the trainers’ approach
• 60 national follow-up trainings are executed by local institutions (trained by ECREEE)
• 1.000 participants participated in the training of local institutions (trained by ECREEE)
• Achieve at least 70% positive feedback of participants in ECREEE trainings (e.g. evaluation forms)
• Conduct three workshops/meetings devoted to sustainable energy in rural/peri-urban areas
• At least 20% of the trained experts are female