Malawi National Assembly Consults “Green Knesset” On Environmental Friendly Tech

Malawi legislatures pose with Mr. Plot
(Third from left front row)

The Malawi National Assembly is consulting the Israel Parliament (Knesset), ‘Worlds Greenest Parliament’, to assist in establishment of efficient green technologies that would save huge sums of money used for some of its operations. 

Knesset is championing the environmental and sustainability project called “Green Knesset” which is attracting global attention as many countries are visiting Israel to learn how Knesset is saving water, paper and reducing energy consumption.

Mr. Plot (left) and Mr Chayen

A delegation led by Mr. Ronen Plot, Director General of the Knesset, and Dr. Samuel Chayen, Sustainability Coordinator for Green Knesset Project is in the country to educate its counterpart on how adopting ideas of Green Knesset Project may considerably save its annual operational costs.

Msowoya

Speaking on Wednesday at the opening of the workshop for the legislatures and head of departments on the Green Parliament and the Organization of Knesset, Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly, Richard Msowoya said considering the economic hardships and unfavorable climatic conditions the country is going through, there is need to consult Knesset on ways that Malawi Parliament can do to save some of its operational costs and conserve environment.

"At this time we need a good partner from whom we can learn a lot" said Msowoya

The Speaker said Malawi Parliament wants to reduce amount of energy, water and paper that it uses as well to transition from manual operation of other business to digital. He said transaction of daily business in the House requires more papers to print various documents including Order Paper and that it is time consuming to do 'roll call' voting during division. He therefore said Israel Parliament is the best in this area because of its well known ‘Green Knesset Project’ and can provide expertise to implement digital voting in the House.

“The first thing that we are looking at is establishing or moving towards creating our Parliament to be green. We are looking at very few items; one is the reduction of energy that we consume, second is to limit the amount of paperwork that we have in processing Parliamentary business." Explains Msowoya in an interview 

“And Israel has been voted one of the greenest Parliament in the World and the good thing about Malawi is that the Knesset is willing to work with us providing technical assistance for us to move to that direction.” He said 

Msoyowa expressed hope saying he is convinced that adopting the Green Knesset Project is a step in the right direction although the initial investment for implementation would seem to be huge.

"But over a period of time there are savings. What happens after that are savings and I think that is very important for us.” He said 

Davis Katsonga asking more about Green Knesset 

“I think as Malawians we have already seen that this environment is no longer a talk, it is real. Last year was voted one of the hottest year in the world, now, Malawians can see, we are in March and the temperatures that we are all experiencing are much higher than probably most of us have experienced before.  So the world is changing which means that we have to be paying more and more attention to the environment and doing things that protect the environment to bring it back to where it is friendly to human beings” explains Msowoya

Msowoya noted that after learning they will also seek Knesset expertise on developing strategy of how they can implement similar project.

“The most important thing is to develop something that we want to do, and once we develop we will convince those people with money it can be ministry of finance, well-wishers who can come on board and say look this is a good idea” he said

Mr. Plot

Director General of the Knesset, Mr. Ronen Plot, told the attendees in the workshop that Green Knesset Project is a very important for both savings on operational costs as well as environmental conservation.

He then assured that a similar Green Knesset in Malawi will bring a lot of benefits to the Malawi Parliament.

“You don’t have to be afraid in investing money because this is the project that you invest and after five years all the money returns. And once you implement this project you will become one of the advanced Parliament in Africa” he assured while adding that “We are coming here to lend you a hand” 

Mr. Plot said back home in 2014, Knesset started the “Green Knesset” Project with initial investment of US$ 1.7 million (NIS7 million) and the average returns from saving water and energy through solar systems is estimated at US$ 400 thousand (NIS 1.5 million) a year. He mentioned that Knesset uses 100% recycled paper, installed 4, 650 square meter solar array which has generating capacity of 450 killowatts and that the Knesset Committees serves water in pitchers instead of bottles which is preventing Knesset from generating 60 thousand plastic bottles a year.

Mr. Plot and Chayen

In an interview  Mr. Ronen Plot, said “We will start working together there is a lot of work to do and am happy to say that both sides want to cooperate  and from our point of view the sky is the limit.” He said, emphasizing “But, you don’t really need financial assistance since it this project that you invest money and the money comes back.” 

In the day there was also a signing of inter-parliamentary cooperation following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two Parliaments’ for cooperation.

The visiting Director General of the Knesset, Sustainability Coordinator for Green Knesset Project arrived on Tuesday and before conducting the workshop on Wednesday, he had Courtesy Call with the Right Honorable Richard Msowoya, Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly.

Mr. Plot with Lazarus Chakwera (Leader of
Opposition) 

Later in the day the delegation met with Clerk of Parliament, Fiona Kalemba and Management of Malawi National Assembly and toured some parts of Lilongwe town.

The delegation which is expected to leave the country on Friday will on Thursday have an Excursion in Salima district.