Mission director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Jamaica, Maura Barry, says the United States government will continue to give full support to Jamaica and other Caribbean countries to become energy independent.
Addressing a recently held energy-efficiency training workshop for members of the hotel sector in Montego Bay, St James, Barry said support will also be given to efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse gases as well as other energy-efficient initiatives.
Barry said USAID’s involvement in the promotion of clean energy in the Caribbean has been ongoing, but has been significantly ramped up since 2014 with special emphasis being placed on the tourism sector.
“When we launched the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative in 2014, our goal was to help Caribbean countries transition to energy independence and it’s through USAID’s Caribbean Clean Energy Programme that we support clean energy development in Jamaica and also in several Caribbean nations,” she noted.
“We all know that the tourism sector is incredibly vital to Caribbean economies and that is why supporting the industry in adopting renewable energy and energy-efficiency matters is also so vitally important,” Barry added.
The workshop, which was the first of its kind to be held for players in the hotel sector, focused on educating managers, chief financial officers, environmental and maintenance managers on the value of conservation, while assisting them to implement energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programmes at their resorts.
Participants were also exposed to aspects of the USAID’s Caribbean Clean Energy Programme’s energy-efficiency benchmarking initiative which can assist them in identifying abnormal energy and water usage as well as unearthing opportunities for savings and investments.
Eight USAID training workshops will be held across the Caribbean under the Caribbean Clean Energy Programme.
