GNMC WANTS ACCESS TO ENERGY SERVICE FOR ALL

About 94% of the countryside in Africa is without access to energy service. And the Ministry of Energy in The Gambia is rolling out a regional programme of providing access to energy service by sensitizing the general public on the conservation and efficient use of energy to ensure other people in the community have access to energy service.

The Energy ministry’s recently launched Gambia National Multi-sectoral Committee (GNMC) has set in train its mission of achieving access to energy service for all.
Launched on 15 December this year, the GNMC, in its goal of fulfilling the requirement for the implementation of the ‘ECOWAS White Paper’, deemed it fitting to call on media practitioners to play their part as partners in development in sensitizing the general public on the conservation and efficient use of energy to ensure other people in the community, especially in the rural areas, also have access to energy service.

THE MOST COMMON SOURCE OF ENERGY IN GAMBIA IS FIREWOOD

According to the chairperson of the GNMC and director of energy at the Ministry of Energy, media practitioners could be of help in sensitizing the population on the essence for energy efficiency and conservation, such as the use of energy saving bulbs and of improved cooking stoves, as well as in discouraging the use of second-hand materials such as refrigerators and air conditioners.

GNMC chair Kemo Ceesay, while speaking to media practitioners from both the print and electronic media at a recent forum held at the Paradise Suites Hotel in Kololi by the Ministry of Energy, said the ECOWAS White Paper was adopted by the region’s heads of state in 2006 as a regional policy to increase access to energy service.
This policy recognizes that access to reliable, affordable and modern energy services is a vehicle for socio-economic development, and in general improves livelihood, particularly for the rural poor.
Mr Ceesay observes that in the African continent, the majority of the population live in peri-urban and rural areas with access to little, if any, modern energy service.

The ‘White Paper’, as it is called, is aimed at providing access to modern energy service to at least half of the population in ECOWAS: 36 million households and over 49,000 other communities by the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); thus reducing poverty and increasing the chances of meeting the MDGs.

In his presentation on the occasion, Peter D. Mendy, energy officer of the Energy ministry, revealed that access to energy in Africa, if not in the world, has become problematic for rural residents.

“Three billion people are living with no access to modern energy service, and 1.6 billion are with no electricity,” he said.
He pointed out that without access to energy service, the possibility of attaining the MDGs is hanging in the balance. In Africa the percentage of people that have access to energy in the rural areas is startling, Mr Mendy said, adding that while 66.8% of urban areas have access to energy, only 22.7% of the rural areas are found to have access to energy.

In the ECOWAS region, the energy officer said, the urban electrification rate is 30%, while only 6% of the rural areas have access to electricity; thus 94% of the countryside is without access to energy service.
Mr Mendy therefore called on journalists to take “keen interest in the activities of the GNMC.”

Providing access to energy service is not the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Energy and GNMC, but all stakeholders including media practitioners.
While the free flow of information between media practitioners and the GNMC is a necessity, Mr Mendy pointed out that stakeholders should demonstrate a “strong and unyielding political will” to ensure access to energy service for all.

Adama Gassama, a member of the GNMC and an energy officer of the ministry, said the common phenomena found in ECOWAS as regards poor electrification status, include the lack of multi-sector institutional structures providing rural and peri-urban areas with energy service. This is one of the lacunae the GNMC will help to address in due course, as it has resolved to support the development of AES investment programmes and regularly monitor and evaluate these programmes.
Without access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy services, the realization of MDG 1 to 5 would prove futile, she said while highlighting the importance of integrating AES as one of the national priorities, with a view to ensuring human development and achievement of the MDGs.

Mrs Gassama is optimistic that by 2015, at least 60% of rural inhabitants will have access to productive energy service, in particular “motive power to boost the productivity of economic activities and access to modern community services”.
She also stated that 66% of the population of 214 million people in the ECOWAS region will individually have access to electricity supply by 2015.

It was a timely workshop held at a time when more than half of the population of The Gambia have questioned the credibility of the national power supplier – NAWEC, as the people continue to grapple with erratic power supply.

Where there is a will there is a way, thus the GNMC is expected to contribute to bringing about a solution to the present status quo of electricity supply in the country.