The Center for Renewable Energies and Industrial Maintenance (CERMI) began another regional training program in its facilities in the city of Praia today, training participants in Energy Efficiency, from Anglophone countries of the ECOWAS region, and with the participation of two representatives from Cabo Verde.

The training program will last for 15 days with four participants from Nigeria, two each from Ghana, Gambia, Liberia and Cabo Verde, and one representative from Sierra Leone.

For the first time, there will be a representative from Burkina Faso, who will participate as an observer to the training, as preparation for a similar training in September, this time for Francophone countries of the ECOWAS region.

The 14 trainees were chosen from a cohort of 144 applications, from each of the referred countries, in what was a very competitive selection process.

On this occasion, the goal of the training is to give participants the tools they will need to later enable them to train technicians in their respective countries. By transferring this acquired knowledge, we aim to help those countries implement their own policies and actions in the energy transition sector which is currently an area of major investment in the entire sub-region.

The opening ceremony for the training was conducted by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of CERMI, who welcomed the participants and trainers, highlighting the importance of the issue of energy efficiency for the sub-region's development.

Luís Teixeira expressed that the initiative also aims to project CERMI as a Regional Center, for which, he said, “partnerships, support and synergies are needed”, and which should and could be driven by the current and future trainees.

After the opening ceremony, participants were given a guided tour of CERMI's facilities, during which they were able to visit the Center’s workshops, laboratories and Solar Photovoltaic Park, as well as appreciate the functional structure of the building that will host them for the next two weeks.

Besides the presence of the Chairman of the Board, the opening ceremony was also attended by a representative of LuxDev (Luxembourg Cooperation), which is the Government of Cabo Verde’s main partner for CERMI, the Executive and Non-executive Directors of the institution, Luís de Pina and Gilson Correia, respectively, Project Coordinator Jansénio Delgado, and the Training Director of the Cabo Verde Center of Competence (CDC 3C), Edson Mendes.

This is the second training of its kind, aimed at the Anglophone countries of the ECOWAS region and within the framework of CERMI's Regional Anchoring strategy. The first training session, on Photovoltaic Solar Energy, took place in March this year and trained 16 participants from the Anglophone countries of the region, as well as Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau.