The role of academia in capacity building for sustainable energy development: the case of Namibia

Education contributes to both short-term and long-term institutional building and supports human resource development. Both formal and informal education systems contribute to the development and dissemination of any technology. To ensure long-term sustainability and continuity of any sectorial development, professional, technical training and research at tertiary level (technical institutions, colleges and universities) should be given high priority. This paper proposes Capacity Building through education as a strategy towards Sustainable Energy Development. This approach allows the building of abilities, relationships and values that enable institutions, groups and individuals to improve the development, utilisation and performance of energy systems in an efficient and environmentally benign manner. Results from a project implemented by the Namibia University of Science and Technology in partnership with National University of Lesotho, Botswana University and Hochschule Darmstadt - University of Applied Sciences (Germany) are presented. The findings show that capacity building in the energy sector is still needed in the three partner countries (Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana). The proposed approaches to address the problem include: development of academic programmes and an energy repository. Though academic institutions are at the centre of capacity building in sustainable energy development, the success will depend on consorted and collaborative effort by all key stakeholders. (C) 2016 Published by Elseiver Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.