News from the GBEP Working Group on Capacity Building: first forum held in West Africa and new activity groups launched in Rio


The newly established GBEP Working Group on Capacity Building for Sustainable Bioenergy began its activities last March with the “ECOWAS Regional Bioenergy Forum” organized by the first of the three Activity Groups focused on “Regional Forums/Workshops on Sustainable Modern Bioenergy” and co-led by the United States and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) . The Forum, co-organized with the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) was held in the Malian capital, Bamako, and saw the participation of over 200 delegates, speakers, and participants from 25 countries. It initiated a regional dialogue and peer-to-peer learning to support ECOWAS Member States in developing regional and national bioenergy strategies, which will help meet energy needs and create a vibrant and sustainable modern bioenergy sector that promotes economic growth, rural development, and poverty alleviation. The group will now host a follow-up workshop in November in Rome and that will focus on resource assessments to promote effective policy planning for a sustainable bioenergy sector.

The second Activity Group initiated officially its activities at the recent Rio meetings. This second group, called “Raising awareness and sharing of data and experiences from the implementation of the GBEP indicators” and led by Germany and Indonesia, will build on the experienced gained on the sustainability indicators through the evaluation pilot projects. The goals are to learn from the experience of using the indicators in the field and to share this knowledge and information within the Working Group in order to overcome problems, find solutions and improve the methodological application of the indicators. This group will ensure a regular share of experience through email, an e-forum and teleconferences and will also be a good vehicle for awareness raising of the GBEP sustainability indicators and spreading the use of them to other countries and regions. These activities will facilitate peer-to-peer learning in a coherent, systematic way and will provide essential mechanisms for feedback of how the indicator pilot projects are progressing and how the indicators could be improved in future.

The scope of work of the third Activity focused on “Study Tour for capacity building and training” was presented by Brazil and will be further discussed in the next Rome meetings.

Further details on the GBEP Working Group on Capacity Building are available here.

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