Current and Past AFREPREN/FWD Policy Advisory Panel

1. Mr. Patrick A. Rutabanzibwa, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Mr. Rutabanzibwa is currently the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy of Tanzania, a post he has held for close to a decade. As a Permanent Secretary (a Presidential level appointment), he is effectively the top-most technocrat in Tanzania’s energy sector. Mr. Rutabanzibwa has been instrumental in improving the performance of the energy sector in Tanzania.  He was one of the senior government officials in Tanzania who was instrumental in halting a lopsided contract between the Government of Tanzania and IPTL, an independent power producer that could have bankrupted the country’s power industry.  Mr. Rutabanzibwa was the chairman of the technical team that reviewed and approved the management consulting firm that is managing TANESCO, the state-owned electricity utility. Mr. Rutabanzibwa was one of the founder members of AFREPREN/FWD, but withdrew from active AFREPREN/FWD participation due to pressing commitments arising from his senior position in Tanzania’s energy sector. 

2. Mr. Patrick Nyoike, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy, Nairobi, Kenya

Mr. Patrick Nyoike has been in the Kenya Civil Service since 1981 to-date, where he has risen through the ranks; from a junior economist/statistician to chief economist in 1991 which is the highest promotional position for serving economists. In 2003, he was appointed as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy. In the course of his long civil service career, he has served in the ministries of National Planning and Development (7 years), Energy (12 years) and Finance (5 years). Since January 1994 to 2003, he was on secondment to the Ministry of Energy from the Ministry of Finance as a World Bank consultant on Energy Policy and Sector Reforms. Mr. Nyoike is currently Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy. He has published widely on energy issues in Kenya.

3. Prof. Boaventura Chongo Cuamba, Associate Professor, Renewable Energies Research and Training Programme, Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique

Prof. Boaventura Chongo Cuamba was born in the district of Chócuè, province of Gaza, Mozambique on 20 January 1961. He attended primary school and part of his secondary school in his home district from 1967 to 1976. In 1977 he moved to Maputo, where he completed secondary school and pre-university education in 1978. In 1979 he joined the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) where was graduated as Bacharel in Physics in 1981. In 1982, he started work as lecturer at the Eduardo Mondlane University and in the same year he went to the former East Germany where in 1985 obtained the degree of M.Sc. in Physics from the  University of Jena. In 1991, he enrolled at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, in the UK, where he obtained the degree of  Ph.D.  in Physics with specialisation in Energy Studies in 1996. In the same year Prof. Cuamba was appointed Deputy Dean for Research and Extension at the Faculty of Sciences, position that he occupied until the end of 2000. Since the early 1990s, Prof. Cuamba has been involved in research and development in the field of renewable energy. He established and coordinates the Renewable Energies Research and Training Programme, which is a research unit in the Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences at UEM. His areas of interest include resources assessment, technology development, policy issues and interrelated issues of energy and the environment. Prof. Cuamba established a Non-Governmental Organisation - Action Group for Renewable Energies and Sustainable Development (GED) in the year 2003, and is the Director. From 2003, he has been involved in a commission for overseeing the introduction of the academic credit system in Mozambique. Outside the university, Prof Cuamba participated in the preparation of the Science and Technology Policy for Mozambique from 2002 to 2003.     

4. Dr. G. Rajpati, Executive Director, Mauritius Sugar Authority, Port Louis, Mauritius

Dr. Rajpati is the Executive Director of the Mauritius Sugar Authority.  This is an apex organisation on sugar matters in Mauritius and its role is to advise government on the national policy for the country’s pivotal sugar industry, which now meets about 40% of Mauritius’s electricity demand.  Dr. Rajpati has been involved in a wide range of cogeneration projects in Mauritius.  He was a member of a technical committee that enabled the sale of co-generated electricity from bagasse to the national grid.    

5. Prof. Suani Teixeira Coelho, Executive Secretary, The Brazilian Reference Center on Biomass (CENBIO), University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Prof. Coelho a professor and thesis advisor at the Energy Graduation Program of University of São Paulo and her research subject is Energy Production from Biomass. She is the Deputy Secretary for the Environment of São Paulo State and also Executive Secretary of CENBIO – The Brazilian Reference Centre on Biomass. Prof. Coelho coordinates technical, economic, environmental and institutional studies on biomass for energy use with various Brazilian and foreign institutions, including Federal and State Governments. She has participated in the Brazilian Energy Initiative that was presented by the Brazilian Government at WSSD (Johannesburg, 2002), published several papers and has attended numerous national and international energy conferences. 

6. Prof. Frede Hvelplund, Associate Professor, Institute of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Prof. Hvelplund’s working area is international economics and social anthropology. His work has mainly been in energy planning. Prof. Hvelplund has been a senior advisor for rural energy planning and a member of various Danish government commissions. He recently published a ground-breaking study on power sector reforms that underlined the central importance of wider participation in energy decision making. Prof. Hvelplund was a team leader of the 1998 AFREPREN/FWD evaluation team.  

7. Mr. Cornelius Mzezewa, former Director in the Department of Energy, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Harare, Zimbabwe

With extensive experience in Zimbabwe as well as the SADC region’s energy sector, Mr. Mzezewa has a detailed appreciation of the challenges facing energy policy makers in the region. He currently an independent consultant working on a project to improve the emission factors for coal fired power stations in Zimbabwe.  Mr. Mzezewa has participated in various research studies and authored papers. Some of the notable papers are the vulnerability and adaptation for the power  sector in Zimbabwe, options for the establishment of the office of the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Commission, Energy Sector Reforms in Zimbabwe, and a critical review of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded solar photovoltaics Households and Rural Institutions in Zimbabwe.

8. Mr. Buti Mogotsi, Principal Energy Officer, Energy Affairs Division, Ministry of Minerals Energy and Water Affairs, Gaborone, Botswana

Mr. Mogotsi is currently an Principal Energy Officer at the Energy Affairs Division of the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Affairs of Botswana. He is in charge of the New and Renewables Sources of Energy (NRSE) section of the Division. He has extensive experience in project design, implementation and evaluation, management of the NRSE sub-sector and technology assessment. Mr. Mogotsi has authored numerous reports and papers on energy that have been instrumental in shaping Botswana’s energy and environmental policies.  Mr. Mogotsi was a principal researcher with AFREPREN/FWD in the Renewables and Energy for Rural Development theme group. 

9. Mr. Mawuli Tse, Managing Director, Solar Light Company Ltd., Accra, Ghana

Mawuli Tse is Director of International Sales for Africa at iBasis, Inc.  Prior to joining iBasis he was a senior applications engineer at Parametric Technology Corporation, a US software company.  More recently, he was the founding Managing Director of Africa Online Ghana Ltd. and oversaw the establishment of the company as a leader in the Internet industry in Ghana.  Mawuli has founded and currently serves as a director of two startup companies in Ghana; Solar Light Company Ltd. - an energy solutions company, and MacroTrend Ltd. - a computer networking company.

Mr. Tse is co-founder of the African Technology Forum, a journal on science and technology in Africa.  He holds master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and technology policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

10. Mr. Bikash Pandey, Country Representative and Director-REPSO, Winrock International (Putting Ideas to Work), Kathmandu, Nepal

Bikash Pandey is an electrical engineer and resource economist trained at MIT and University of California at Berkeley. He has over a dozen years of experience in promoting small-scale renewable energy systems in rural areas of developing countries, in Asia and Central America, but particularly in Nepal. Among his areas of expertise are financing of renewable energy services, development of a project pipeline for the Clean Development Mechanism, and encouraging policies of government and those of bilateral and multilateral donors to support decentralized rural energy. He is a technical specialist in mini- and micro-hydropower systems. Mr. Pandey is currently South Asia Director of Winrock International’s Clean Energy Program. He is also Country Representative for Winrock International in Nepal.   

DDP Role: The Dams and Development report has sparked an overdue, serious global discussion on the future role of dams in bettering the human condition. The Dams and Development Project has the important task of guiding and channeling this dialogue towards a much better understanding and possible agreement within civil society, in the context of individual countries, about the role of dams in meeting their needs for water, energy, and environmental services and how they might best be executed in future.

11. Dr. Joy Dunkerley, Washington, USA

Dr. Joy Dunkerley, a consulting economist in the field of Energy Economics, has degrees from the London School of Economics, and, as a Fulbright Fellow, from Clark University, Worcester, Mass.  She also studied at Stanford University.   

Her professional activities over much of the past 20 years have centered on a wide range of energy issues, particularly in developing countries. These activities include, at Resources for the Future Inc., the development of an economics based policy research program on energy in the developing countries and co-authorship of the RFF book Energy Strategies for Developing Nations.  As a Senior Analyst at the United States Congressional Office of Technology Assessment she directed an assessment on Energy Technologies for Developing Countries, whose findings were published in two reports Energy in Developing Countries (1991), and  Fueling Development (1992), and contributed to an assessment of energy technologies for the former east bloc.  She is presently engaged as a consultant on studies on rural energy supplies in India and Tunisia for the World Bank, global prospects for civilian nuclear power for the Atlantic Council, and energy policies and economic development for UNESCO. 

She has published widely; consulted for many international organizations; served on the Committee for Research Grants of the US National Academy of Sciences; led a delegation of energy economists to the P.R. of China; and was President of the International Association for Energy Economics in 1983.  She received the 2000 US Association for Energy Economics Adelman-Frankel Award for Unique and Innovating Contributions to the field of Energy Economics. She is a member of the Cosmos Club, in Washington DC, and a Board member of the National Rehabilitation Hospital and the American Friends of the London School of Economics. .

12. Dr. Bereket Kebede, University of Bath, UK and University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Dr. Kebede holds the degrees of DPhil. in Economics and MSc. in Agricultural Economics from Oxford University, a B.A. in Economics from Addis Ababa University and a Certificate in Environmental Economics from Gothenburg University, Sweden. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bath, UK. He has held the posts of Lecturer and Assistant Lecturer at Addis Ababa University and was the Vice President and Administrative Secretary of the Ethiopian Economic Association. He has been a manager, coordinator and researcher in various research projects. He has published papers on energy ecosystems, agricultural households models, institutional economics and on petroleum pricing, taxation and marketing in Africa.

13. Dr. Edward Marandu, University of Botswana, Botswana

Dr. Marandu (B.A, M.B.A, PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Botswana. He holds a B.A. from the University of Dar-Es-Salaam, an M.B.A. from Arizona State University, and PhD from the University College Dublin, Ireland. Formerly, he taught marketing at the University of Dar-Es-Salaam and has held a visiting position at the University College Dublin. He has been consultant to several businesses in Ireland, Tanzania, and Botswana as well as to the International Trade Centre. His research interest is in business performance, economic reforms, customer satisfaction and international business analysis. He has several publications in these areas as well as on marketing in general.     

14. Mr. Maxwell Mapako, Biomass Users Network, Zimbabwe

Mr. Mapako holds a MSc. (University of Cape Town) and BSc. Hons. Degree in environmental studies and biochemistry from University of Wales (UK), and a Diploma in renewable energy sources from Urbino, Italy. He has attended various courses in renewable energy technologies and project management. He has worked as a senior research officer in the new and renewable energy section of the Government’s Department of Energy and is currently the Director of the African Regional office of the Biomass Users Network. He has authored numerous publications on biomass energy technologies that have been instrumental in shaping Zimbabwean renewable energy policies and programs.

15. Ms. Khamarunga G. Banda, Minerals and Energy Policy Centre and Novafrica, South Africa

Ms. Khamarunga Banda has a Masters Degree in social science with a major in international education and a certificate in professional teaching from University of Stockholm, Sweden. She also holds a certificate in professional teaching from University of Umea, Sweden and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in education and a Diploma in education from the University of Zambia. She has undertaken research in resource management, environmental change and human adaptation in rural areas, participatory methods for community mobilization, agricultural change and women and development.  She is currently pursuing Doctoral studies in the Department of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of Witswatersrand.

16.   Director, AFREPREN/FWD, Kenya

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