REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS 009/2014 Sustainable Energy Management Energy Policy Review in Malawi

The Government of Malawi (GoM) recognizes that the energy sector plays a vital role for the country in: improving the performance of the economy; improving delivery of social services; creating investment and employment opportunities and reducing poverty.

In recognition of this, the GoM through the Ministry of Natural Resource, Energy and Mining (MNREM), prepared a National Energy Policy (NEP) in January 2003. The motivation for the NEP was founded on three main considerations as follows: (1) Developments in the energy sector have an important bearing on the success of economic development initiatives in the country,   prevalence of intensive manufacturing activities is positively associated with use of modern sources of energy such as electricity, liquid fuels, gas and coal;   (2) Malawi is relatively well endowed with energy resources (biomass, coal, hydro, wind and solar energy), their full potential is far from being realized, a number of structural and institutional challenges must be overcome to unlock this potential; (3) while planning is essential to formulating policy for energy, globally the approach to planning has taken a paradigm shift over the past two to three decades, the role of the Government has changed from direct investment and control to policy formulation and governance; a greater reliance on market arrangements, competition and private sector participation has been made.