ESEF 2025 Pre-Events Set the Stage for West Africa’s Energy Future.
By Raymond Enoch
As momentum builds for the ECOWAS Sustainable Energy Forum (ESEF 2025), a series of high-impact pre-events kicking off today in Banjul are setting the tone for transformative energy action across West Africa. Held from September 15–17, these technical sessions and workshops are convening leading stakeholders to drive forward regional collaboration, innovation, and policy alignment in sustainable energy.
At the heart of these pre-events is a clear goal: to accelerate universal access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
At the Kairaba Beach Hotel, ECREEE and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) have launched a Regional Workshop on the Validation of Training Modules for Clean Mini-Grids. Spanning two days (Sept 15–16), the forum brings together designers, installers, and inspectors from across the region to harmonize technical training materials. The outcome? Validated, high-quality modules poised to enhance local capacity and scale up mini-grid deployment—a cornerstone of ECOWAS’s rural electrification strategy.
Simultaneously, the Metzy Residence Hotel is hosting a National Workshop on Harmonized Standards for Solar Home Systems (up to 350W), under the World Bank-supported Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP). Running from September 16–17, this technical dialogue zeroes in on quality assurance frameworks, testing protocols, and regulatory alignment—ensuring that solar solutions meet both safety and performance benchmarks.
The final day, September 17, shifts to the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, where multiple thematic sessions will highlight cross-cutting issues:
Energy Efficiency (EELA 2.0): Co-led by UNIDO and SIDA, this session focuses on compliance, laboratory readiness, and enforcement frameworks for scaling efficiency.
Clean Cooking: With support from the EU, AECID, and RVO, experts will chart a path toward a unified regional strategy to accelerate clean cooking adoption and reduce dependence on biomass.
Climate-Resilient Cooling & Gender: Showcasing innovations from EU-funded SophiA and AGRICOOL projects, this dialogue emphasizes cooling technologies that are not just climate-smart but gender-responsive.
ECSES Technical Committee Meeting: The 5th Meeting of the ECOWAS Certification of Sustainable Energy Skills (ECSES), supported by AfDB, will evaluate certification progress and outline 2026 priorities.
With ESEF 2025 officially opening on September 18, these pre-events are proving to be more than a warm-up—they are a crucial platform for shaping the energy agenda and building the regional partnerships needed to power West Africa’s sustainable future.
