9 May 2014: The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) has released the eighth edition of its newsletter, highlighting ECOWAS’ adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency policies, a campaign for gender awareness, and regional priorities for the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative.

The newsletter recounts the July 2013 adoption by ECOWAS Heads of State of the ECOWAS Energy Efficiency Policy (EEEP) and the ECOWAS Renewable Energy Policy (EREP). The objective of EEEP is to achieve 2000 megawatts in power savings in the region through energy efficiency measures, while EREP seeks to increase the share of electricity produced from renewable sources other than large hydro to 10% by 2020 and 19% by 2030. ECREEE is tasked to lead the national implementation of both policies, in accord with existing ECOWAS frameworks, strategies and regional SE4ALL roadmap.

SE4ALL priorities include a Ghana-led effort of a SE4ALL mission to increase access to improved clean cooking methods and fuels, and to raise the share of distributed electricity generation. As a result of the mission, the newsletter states that ECREEE reiterated its commitment as a SE4ALL hub in the region and drew a set of recommendations to establish a special SE4ALL secretariat and to create a renewable energy fund and feed-in tariff law in Ghana.

In regard to the new gender campaign, the newsletter describes the launch of a flagship initiative on the ECOWAS Program on Gender Mainstreaming in Energy Access (ECOW-GEN), as well as an ECREEE workshop on empowering women through energy access, which led to the adoption of a Framework Action Plan and new gender working group.

The newsletter also contains information on various investments and grants, including: an initiative by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to promote investment in small and medium-scale renewable energy technologies in Guinea-Bissau; an ECREEE-sponsored project to reduce the operating costs of renewable energy businesses in Gambia; and a training workshop held in Cape Verde to promote Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) funding in the region.

The newsletter also lists a series of upcoming events relevant to renewable energy in the region. [Publication: ECREEE February 2014 Newsletter] [IISD RS Story on ECOWAS Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policies]