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June 9, 2015 – The ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) in collaboration with the Directorate-General for Energy of Cabo Verde (DGE) and the Group for the Environment, Renewable Energy and Solidarity (GERES), organized a Validation Workshop on Diagnostic Study of Clean Cooking Energy Value Chain.
In order to address the challenges facing the ECOWAS region in terms of access to clean cooking services, the West Africa Clean Cooking Alliance (WACCA) was launched at the ECOWAS High Level Energy Forum held in Accra, Ghana on the 30th October 2012 with the mandate to establish an enabling environment in order to promote and advance clean cooking energy market in the region.
As an effort to achieve the goals of WACCA, , ECREEE conducted a study in collaboration with DGE and GERES as a prerequisite for a comprehensive cooking energy program. It is in this light that, this workshop was organized to present the results of the study and discuss the way forward to tackle the energy poverty.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Mahama Kappiah – Executive Director of ECREEE, provided some statistical data to highlight the harm of the unsustainable use of traditional biomass for cooking is having on the environment and also to the health of the people affected, mainly women and children. Mr. Kappiah also emphasized on the importance of the study s and noted that it is a “step towards the development of a long-term national programme, capable of achieving widespread promotion of clean cooking energy services.”
In his speech, Mr. Anildo Costa, General Director for Energy in Cabo Verde focused on the importance to use of efficient energy for cooking purposes and he also said that the use of biomass should be an additional option, not the only source.
The results of the study presented revealed that even though the LGP penetration in Cabo Verde is high, the use of traditional biomass is still on the high, mainly in rural areas. So it is crucial to put in place the right mechanisms for a large scale adoption of improved cookstoves. One of the recommendation was realization of a larger study involving other ECOWAS Member States to allow the development of action plans with country-specific solutions.