AECE2-ESMAP webinar on Energy for Jobs

Join this webinar hosted by the World Bank’s Kenya Country Office and ESMAP on opportunities for creation of sustainable jobs in Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) . They will explore the opportunities and challenges in accelerating access to energy, expanding economic opportunities and creating sustainable jobs in the agriculture and livestock sectors.

This webinar brings together agriculture and energy practitioners to explore how to unlock transformation in the Agri-food systems. Agriculture accounts for 56 percent of total employment in Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE). Improving productivity in agriculture, livestock, and fisheries, and supporting approaches that allow smallholder farmers, livestock producers, and fish producers to move up the value chains is critical. However, the lack of reliable energy access in these rural areas presents a major barrier to economic activity and job creation, and to the expansion of benefits to smallholder farmers. In these rural areas, accelerated access to energy needed to achieve economic growth and job creation can only happen through distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions, such as solar home systems, micro-grids, and mini-grids.

During this webinar, you will learn firsthand from practitioners about distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions, how DRE facilitates higher productivity in agriculture and livestock value chains, and how it enables sustainable job creation. We will hear about experiences to accelerate the expansion of access to energy in AFE, South Asia and beyond. We will discuss what has worked, what has not, and how successful approaches can be replicated and scaled up.

The event will be chaired by Qimiao Fan, Division Director for Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, and Uganda at the World Bank. The presentation will be given by Dana Rysankova, Lead Energy Specialist at the World Bank. Closing remarks will be delivered by Fanny Missfeldt-Ringius, Practice Manager at ESMAP, World Bank. The panelists include:

- Kasozí Tondo James, Principal Engineer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Uganda

- Amanullah Alamzai, Senior Agriculture Economist at the World Bank

- Bas Hetterschied, Manager Partnerships at Wageningen University & Research (WUR)