Cooperation in Geothermal Development at Great Rift Valley in Africa

Abstract

Aiming at promoting geothermal development in the developing countries, not only financial supports but also establishment of the system for the government to take geothermal development risks is effective strategies. In this paper examines that both assistances provision of financial support and reduction of its development risks contribute to improvement of Expected Rate of Return (ERR) of geothermal development and to dissolution of the bottleneck of its development is discussed. Therefore, JICA responds to both technical and financial needs to support for geothermal development. For technical needs, it focuses on fostering human resources to improve the success rate of exploratory drilling, the accuracy of evaluating geothermal reservoirs, and the acceleration of the geothermal development. Regarding financial support, there are two schemes, grant and ODA loan. And assistances of human resource development and financial support are fundamentally related to implement both and simultaneously to make greater impacts on risk mitigation in geothermal development.