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Toshiba pledges to support geothermal ambitions in Malawi, Africa

Toshiba pledges to support geothermal ambitions in Malawi, Africa Karonga, Lake Malawi, Malawi, Africa (source: flickr/ andresfib, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 30 Aug 2019

Toshiba pledges support to Malawi's geothermal development ambitions and will provide scholarship to a Malawi student for Master or PhD studies in Japan in geothermal energy and hydro power in Japan.

As reported locally, in the context of this week’s 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7), co-hosted by the United Nations, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank and African Union Commission (AUC), Toshiba has pledged to support geothermal energy development in Malawi.

This is part of a previous MOU signed between Toshibia and Malawi, we reported on, on cooperation for geothermal development in the country. Now the company will be offering a scholarship to a Malawian student to study geothermal energy and hydro power in Japan.

Satoshi Tsukanawa, President of Toshiba, made the pledge when he held a side meeting with Malawi Government delegation at TICAD7 in Yokohama, Japan. Toshiba and representatives of Malawai met on the sidelines of TICAD7 following the signed 2018 MOU that entailed Toshiba to strengthen “the development of energy sector in Malawi by building the capacity of the country’s human resource in the sector.”

“Toshiba is increasing its focus on Africa, including Malawi and we are going to support in the area of geothermal and hydro power systems,” said Tsukanawa in an interview with Mana after the side meeting with the Malawi delegation. “So we would like to continue to have multilateral discussions on this on a win-win relationship basis,” he added.

The support will be for “one young, talented and qualified Malawian in the said field up to Masters or Doctorate level would help in achieving sustainable development in the energy sector in Malawi.”, so Tsuakanawa. He added that the identification of the candidate would be done in a couple of weeks to come through a transparent process between Malawi Government and the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) in Malawi.

Once identified, the candidate would be fully sponsored by Toshiba to study in the said area in one of the Japanese universities for a year to attain the required level of mastery to develop the energy sector in Malawi with the support of Toshiba.

During the meeting, the delegation had pushed for funding of the energy project on South Rukulu River in Northern Region, according to Bagus. On May 3, 2018, Toshiba and Malawi’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in South Africa on Geothermal Power Generation. The MoU anticipated a comprehensive partnership in geothermal power projects, including capacity building programs in relation to the technology.

Source: Nyasa Times