A Stakeholder Workshop: Blueprinting District-Level Energy Officers

2^nd March 2017, Lilongwe, Malawi

The Government of Malawi is committed to implementation of District Energy Officers (DEOs) to be working in all 28 Malawi districts by 2020, however the roles and responsibilities are not defined. The University of Strathclyde, Loughborough University, Community Energy Malawi and consultants from GAMOS and Mzuzu University are working to blueprint the District Energy Officer role. A stakeholder workshop was held to gather in-country feedback on the big questions…

‘What will the District Energy Officer provide in the district?’

‘How can the District Energy Officer work with central and local government?’

‘What are the main risks and challenges?’

‘What are the main opportunities for the District Energy Officer role?’

The workshop was attended by 35 participants from all levels, including central government, district representatives, local communities, NGOs and Academia.

The workshop took place part way through the DEO blueprinting exercise and therefore the aim of the workshop was to receive stakeholder suggestions and feedback, as well as improve in-country awareness of the DEO blueprinting policy.

The end result of the workshop and the DEO blueprinting exercise will be an energy decentralisation policy brief, publicly available at the end of April. The policy brief will take forward The Government of Malawi commitment to improving energy access across the country and the way forward for decentralisation.

In the meantime, you can find all the presentations from the day here (with links to the slides):

• Decentralisation of community energy Jon Cloke, Loughborough University;
• Lessons learnt from Kenya Richard Sieff, Loughborough University;
• Energy development governance and lessons learnt from decentralised energy systems in Malawi Collen Zalengera, Mzuzu University;
• Malawi District Energy Officer blueprint- Literature review Hannah Buckland, University of Strathclyde;
• CEM – practical ‘lessons learnt’ and stakeholder questionnaires progress Louis Yona, Community Energy Malawi.

 

Any further feedback and comments on the topic of District Energy Officer blueprinting are very welcome.