Energy for Sustainable Development (E4SD) has just launched a new complementary capacity building activity, aimed at promoting active dialogue and exchange of ideas to respond to key challenges related to energy for sustainable development.

Unlike the E4SD Online Course, the “Policy Dialogue” focuses on one specific topic at the time, which gets explored in greater depth. The theme of the forthcoming E4SD Policy Dialogue will be “Scenarios as a tool for energy policy making”.

The overall learning objective of this session is to provide knowledge of how scenario techniques can serve as a tool for energy planning and energy policy making. As such, the session is also expected to lead to an improved understanding of key future trends and driving forces that can shape tomorrow’s energy systems. The session, which will be held from 28th June to 8th August, 2010, seeks to bring together experienced energy and development professionals from a range of institutions including government, NGOs, multilateral and bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) businesses and the private sector, who are engaged in energy and development activities in developing countries. The Policy Dialogue session requires a work input of about 40 hours over a period of six weeks. It will be entirely conducted through the E4SD online platform.

Deadline for applications is 15 June 2010. Notification on whether an applicant has been shortlisted will be given on 21 June 2010 at the latest. The session will be offered free of charge to accepted participants. For information on how to apply for the E4SD Policy Dialogue, please access the website at http://www.e4sd.org/policy_dialogue.htm