Malawi’s Minister of Energy, Honorable Ibrahim Matola has today ,29th November, 2022 officially opened a 2 – day national conference on energy organised by the Renewable Energy Industries Assocation of Malawi (REIAMA) with support from the Ministry of Energy and other stakeholders at Sunbird Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi district.
In his remarks, Matola acknowledged the challenges that the country is going through in terms of energy.
Matola also took an opportunity to highlight the steps that government is taking towards ending the challenges.
“Malawi is blessed with abundant energy resources that just need concerted efforts from all of us to harness them. We have a long pipeline of energy projects – many of which are clean and renewable energy-based. We need to identify sustainable and affordable financing to implement these projects. We all have a huge role to play in this,” he said.
He added,” as Government, we will be looking forward to receiving useful take aways and recommendations from this Conference for our consideration,” Matola said.
According to the Minister, a conference that will run up to tommorow, 30th November,has come at the right time as Malawi and the world at large is going through serious energy challenges ranging from rising energy prices to scarcity of critical energy products and services.
Matola added that the conference has also come at a right time when world leaders and professionals are just coming from Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt where they gathered under CoP27 to deliberate on challenges and solutions to climate change as it relates to energy and other sectors.
The keynote address titled “Harnessing energy in the national development equation: The road ahead” will be delivered by Challa Getachew, Deputy Resident Representative for United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The fist ever national conference on energy is being held under the theme “Energy: Catalyst for Sustainable Development,”