GEF-SGP and the UNDP trains Clean Energy Entrepreneurs and Solar Installers in Makoko
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have trained 50 women as clean energy entrepreneurs and 20 youths as solar installers in Makoko, Lagos, Nigeria. This was part of the Access to Clean Energy Project sponsored by the organizations for households in the Makoko-Iwaya Waterfront Communities in Lagos.
The week long training held at two locations in the communities – the Makoko Neighborhood Hotspot and the Events Centre was implemented by King’s Domain, a Nigeria based BoP NGO with special interest in alleviating energy poverty.
The 50 women drawn from the Makoko – Iwaya Waterfront Communities were trained to use, promote and engage in the business of selling clean energy products like improved cook stoves and solar lanterns while the 20 youths were trained as solar installers. At the end of the training, the trainees received certificates. In addition, each of the 50 women was given one solar lantern and one improved cook stove while the youths received solar installation kits and a box of tools to practice the profession.
Several of the Chiefs from the Communities were present at the graduation ceremony and expressed their happiness and appreciation to the UNDP and King’s Domain for the program meant to uplift their environment and their ways and standard of life
Established in 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, the GEF Small Grants Programme embodies the very essence of sustainable development by “thinking globally acting locally”. By providing financial and technical support to projects that conserve and restore the environment while enhancing people’s well-being and livelihoods, SGP demonstrates that community action can maintain the fine balance between human needs and environmental imperatives.
Implemented by the UNDP, the GEF-SGP provides grants of up to $50,000 directly to local communities including indigenous people, community-based organizations and other non-governmental groups for projects in Biodiversity, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Land Degradation and Sustainable Forest Management, International Waters and Chemicals.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established to help tackle the planet’s most pressing environmental problems. Since then, the GEF has provided $14.5 billion in grants and mobilized $75.4 billion in additional financing for almost 4,000 projects. The GEF has become an international partnership of 183 countries, international institutions, civil society organizations, and private sector to address global environmental issues.
Before the training of the women and youths, the GEF-SGP had sponsored a baseline survey, focus group interviews and a clean energy awareness creation exercise in the Makoko and Iwaya Waterfront Communities. These were implemented by King’s Domain.
The project, according to Mr. Segun Adaju, Executive Director with King’s Domain Ltd/Gtee, will in the next 30 days distribute another set of 500 units of solar lanterns and 500 units of improved cook stoves to women in the Makoko and Iwaya communities in addition to training another set of women on briquette making and sales.
