Innovation at the heart of energy efficiency in West Africa

The Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is organizing a delocalized meeting under the theme “Ensuring energy efficiency in West Africa with emphasis on innovation, active involvement of the private sector and citizen participation”,from 10 to 14 August, 2021 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The Joint Committee on Energy and Mines / Industry and Private Sector / Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources / Infrastructure will lead delegation to the meeting.

The objective of this high-level meeting is to keep regional parliamentarians informed of the Community’s actions in terms of energy efficiency and in context of the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts will make presentations to Members of Parliament on relevant topics related to energy efficiency in the West African region during the meeting. In view of its responsibility in the decision-making process of the Community, the ECOWAS Parliament has become aware of the challenges linked to the energy performance of the region.

The future of energy in West Africa will necessarily have to give pride of place to innovation. In this perspective, the private sector remains a key player in the development of innovative solutions in the search for energy performance. In addition, the vision of the people of ECOWAS involves citizen participation in energy governance. This participation is essential for the social acceptance of the necessary transformations and for the involvement of the people in the implementation of Community projects in the field of energy.

The ECOWAS Parliament is made up of 115 seats. For the allocation of seats, each member state is guaranteed a minimum of five seats. The remaining forty seats were distributed in proportion to the population of each country. Based on this distribution, Nigeria has 35 seats, Ghana 8, Ivory Coast 7, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal have 6 seats each. The other countries namely Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo have 5 seats each.