The Environment and Climate Research Center (ECRC) at the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) held a workshop to present the policy-relevant insights in collaboration with Oxford Policy Management in Ethiopia under the auspices of the UK Aid-funded Applied Research Programme on Energy and Economic Growth (EEG).
The workshop was held on Thursday 8 September 2022. Senior government officials, from the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE), Ethiopian Electric Utility, NGOs, UN organizations, research, and academia attended the workshop.
At the welcoming remark of the workshop, PSI's Executive Director General, Prof. Beyene Petros, highlighted PSI as a semi-autonomous government thinks tank institute established to support the government through public policy research that provides insights for policymaking. He underscored such events are important to enhance research-policy linkages.
The opening remark was made by Gosaye Mengiste, advisor to the state minister, Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE). He highlighted the need to address energy-related issues that Ethiopia needs to address. Some of the challenges he mentioned include access to energy, inefficiency challenges, affordability, and inadequate distribution among others that Ethiopia faces.
Presentations were made followed by panel discussions on some of the findings of the 3-year-long research projects where participants actively participated in the discussions. Presentations were made on findings from the following research projects:
- Impacts and Drivers of Policies for Electricity Access: Micro-and-Macro economic evidence from Ethiopia, led by the ECRC / Policy Studies Institute, Ethiopia
- Improving Productive Uses of Electricity in Ethiopia’s Agriculture, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Ethiopia
- Electricity demand forecasting in agriculture – harvesting the synergies of machine learning and survey data for electrification planning in Ethiopia, led by RWI Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, University of Passau, Germany
- Renewable Energy Development in Ethiopia: overcoming obstacles in procurement from independent power producers, led by the Institute of Development Studies, UK
- Energy system development pathways for Ethiopia, led by the Energy Institute, University College London, UK
The workshop disseminated the hard copies of compiled policy briefs prepared by ECRC and the other institutions who were working on the aforementioned research projects.
The Environment and Climate Research Center (ECRC) conducts research on the environment and climate change to help the Ethiopian Government and policymakers make better-informed decisions to alleviate the impact of climate change and environmental problems.