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Launching of renewable energy and green economy trainings for remote rural communities in Fiji.

Suva, Fiji, 2022 – The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in partnership with the Climate Change and International Cooperation Division (CCICD) of the Ministry of Economy, will be conducting community level trainings in selected Fijian communities under its project titled “Capacity Building to Strengthen Sustainable Implementation of Renewable Energy Technologies for Rural Energy Access”. The initiative is part of a 4-year regional project currently under implementation in the Melanesian countries: Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. The project is funded by the Republic of Korea through the Korea International Corporation Agency (KOICA) in partnership with GGGI and the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF).

The project’s main objective is to strengthen informed and inclusive decision-making by resource owners and local government officials for integration of Green Economy (GE) and Renewable Energy (RE) into Local Level Planning and to Strengthen Implementation of Renewable energy (RE) infrastructure for Rural Electrification, taking into account gender and inclusive development.

GGGI, having worked closely with local partners, has developed 10 training modules, complete with detailed trainer guides (TGs) as well as simplified local language translated Learner Workbooks (LWs) on topics such as: Green Economy General Principles, Green Business Basics, Energy Efficiency Basics, Inclusive Development, Renewable Energy General Principles, RE Financial Management, Solar in the Community, Solar Operations and Maintenance basics, Pico- Hydro in the Community and Pico- Hydro Operations and Maintenance basics.

Eight experienced local community trainers have undergone 2 weeks of training of trainers (ToT) workshop, out of which, five trainers will soon be mobilizing to the selected remote rural communities in Fiji to deliver the training.

During his opening speech at the Fiji ToT workshop, the KOICA Country Director, Mr. Ra advised the trainers that he hoped “the trainings delivered through this project will help communities become more independent and climate-resilient. As such, your role as local experts in these trainings will be crucial to its successful implementation”. The project aims to train a total of 3000 people in all 4 countries, while also achieving 40% women and 20% vulnerable groups participation.

The training starts off in Bukuya village in early May, before moving to Vunisea (Kadavu), Rukua (Beqa), Buca village (Vanualevu), and Tutu village (Taveuni), aiming to complete all trainings by early July 2022. All the training modules will also be launched later this year and made publicly available on the online knowledge management platform developed under this project.