The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (SCPD) jointly released the first edition of the Kuwait Energy Outlook on Sunday.
Samira Omar, director general of KISR, in his opening speech said that "the launch of KEO symbolizes the next step in Kuwait's energy planning. We are looking forward to further discussing our findings and recommendations with policy-makers, in order to move towards a diversified, sustainable and energy-efficient society and economy."
SCPD Secretary-General Khaled Mahdi said that Kuwait's first-of-its-kind energy report is part of cooperation between Kuwait and the UN Development Program (UNDP).
Edward Christow, UNDP resident representative, underscored the importance of the first Outlook.
"Kuwait has made significant progress in terms of human development," he said, pointing out that the cause of many challenges emerges from continued high dependence on petroleum, thus requiring urgent action to accelerate the ongoing process of economic diversification as identified in the Kuwait Vision 2035.
A critical step towards achieving these goals will be the strengthening of institutional capacity in Kuwaiti institutions to develop and implement a National Strategy and Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, Edward Christow noted.
The outlook report highlights and analyses three main tasks of Kuwait in sustaining its prosperity, namely to diversify its oil-dependent economy, stimulate efficient usage of energy, and further develop the country's potential renewable energy sources.
In addition, the report calls for improved collaboration between Kuwait's key energy players across the public and private sectors, to better facilitate the collection and analysis of energy data in Kuwait.
Editor:Cherie
