The Sixth Executive Board Meeting of ECREEE was held on Friday 2 November 2012 at the Movenpick Hotel in Ac­cra, Ghana. The main objective of the meeting was to adopt the ECREEE 2012 Work Plan Status Report and the ECREEE 2013 Work Plan as well as discuss new developments in the energy sector.

The Minister for Environment, Science and Technology of Gha­na, Hon. Sherry Ayittey formally declared the meeting open. Other high level members of the Board in attendance included the ECOWAS Commissioner for Infrastructure and Board Chairman, Mr Ebrima Njie; the Spanish Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Olga Cabarga Gómez; the UNIDO Di­rector for Energy and Climate Change, Dr Pradeep Monga; the Director of In­ternational Programs and Projects of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), Mr Robert Zeiner;, and the ECREEE Ex­ecutive Director, Mr. Mahama Kappiah.

In his address, the ECOWAS Com­missioner for infrastructure expressed satisfaction that the meeting was taking place at the background of the back­ground of the historic decisions taken by the ECOWAS Ministers of Energy regarding the adoption of the regional policies on renewable energy and en­ergy efficiency and noted that the focus will now shift to the achievement of the set targets. He thanked all the partners for their continued support to ECREEE and indeed the ECOWAS region’s en­ergy programmes. The UNIDO Direc­tor for Energy & Climate Change, in his remarks, congratulated ECOWAS, ECREEE and the partners for being the first region in Sub-Saharan Africa to adopt regional green policies, while also emphasising the need to translate these successes into concrete actions. He ex­pressed UNIDO’s willingness to collabo­rate with ECREEE in the implementation of the SE4ALL initiative.

Also delivering his address, the ADA Director for international Pro­grammes and Projects commended ECOWAS for the successful organi­sation of the recently concluded High Level Forum. He reiterated Austria’s commitment to continue providing financial and technical support to ECREEE. The Spanish Ambassador to Ghana, in her remarks, expressed pride at representing Spain on the ECREEE Board and commended the centre for the achievements recorded. The Hon. Minister for Environment, Science and Tech­nology of Ghana while highlighting the role of energy for socio-economic de­velopment, also commended the ECO­WAS Commission for its efforts in the energy sector and the establishment of ECREEE. She expressed optimism that the coming years will witness significant improvement in the region’s energy ac­cess situation.

The Board meeting was preceded by a meeting of the ECREEE Technical Committee (TC) on Thursday, 1 Novem­ber 2012 at the same venue. The TC, which provides technical guidance to the Centre, met to review and make recom­mendations on the reports submitted for the Board’s approval.