Short Course VIII on Exploration for Geothermal Resources held in Kenya
The annual UN Millennium Development Goals "Short Course VIII on Exploration for Geothermal Resources" was held Oct. 31 - Nov. 23, 2013 at Lake Naivasha, Kenya. The course was hosted by the UNU-GTP, Geothermal Development Company, Kenya (GDC), and Kenya Electricity and Generating Company, Ltd. (KenGen). The course is a continuation of the short course series on geothermal exploration that falls within the framework of UNU-GTP Millennium Short Courses that have been conducted annually in Kenya since 2005.
This year, a record number of 70 participants attended the course from 19 countries including two newcomers, Cameroon and Niger. Forty three lecturers presented at the course from six countries, Ethiopia, Iceland, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the host country Kenya. The presentations and papers written for the course, will be published on a CD and made available on the website under Publication.
During the last week of the course the participants worked on group projects, which each group then presented splendidly on the graduation day. The project work and the course, as a whole, was very well received and one of the participants, representing Tunisia, wrote a short appreciation letter to the UNU-GTP:
Just a quick note to thank you enormously for the training on geothermal this month in Naivasha. I found the programme excellent – full of very high value presentations, thoughtfully crafted together to ensure we had a thorough grounding on different aspects of the process. I learnt a huge amount and have already been asked to share some of that knowledge with colleagues having returned to the head office in Tunis this week. One of the notable aspects was the very efficient organization of such a complex programme and the participation of such a diversity of participants from so many countries. Having been involved in a number of lesson learning and sharing workshops, conferences and events over the years, I wanted to congratulate you on this – I have not seen a programme so well organized before – kudos both to UNU and to GoK (Kengen and GDC) for this excellent example of south-south learning.
I very much look forward to receiving some of the slides electronically and to working with KenGen and GDC in support of geothermal in Kenya and beyond in coming years.
Thanks again
Kate Tench
Lead Strategy Economist
African Development Bank
Tunisia