Nigeria harped on practical solution for better economy, German envoy

Delegate of German Industry and Commerce in Nigeria, Katharina Felgenhauer has said that Nigeria needs to focus on what is practical and solution oriented ro achieve economic growth and sustainable development.

She stressed that bringing together practitioners, experts, policymakers, the right stakeholders and government on board in fighting climate change will help improve the economy.

She stated this during the West African Clean Energy Conference (WACEE) 2022 held recently in Lagos.

According to her, implementing innovation in these three sectors needs local expertise, capacity and production of sustainable solutions in all areas.

“The conference brought practitioners that can report from their experience what is technically feasible in West Africa, what is needed and the gaps in these sectors. One of the major gaps is finance,” she said.

Component Head, PUE Component, Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Temitope George, stated the need to focus on the economic development of energy access as that would create jobs and businesses.

“The cost of power is expensive and when developers install mini grids, because they use the combination of debt, equity and grants to install them, they are going to charge amounts which could be higher rate for the power being consumed,” she said.

According to her, consumers need to understand energy efficiency and use efficient appliances that won’t consume lots of power.

She noted that REA embarks on rural community engagements, working with zonal officers across the six geopolitical zones, and sets up rural electricity user cooperatives to enlighten consumers through financing from African Development Bank (AfDB), for productive uses of energy.

“There is also training consultancy to build the body of knowledge to train NGO’s community developers and customers on basic bookkeeping keeping, financial literacy and how to access grants available under World Bank and AFDB programme,” George said.

Head, Competent Centre, Energy in Environment Delegation of German Industry and Commerce, Nigeria, Andrew Aryee, urged all private and public stakeholders, to cooperate in identifying opportunities that will help develop the country.