The Hague, August 2008
On 22-23 October 2008, SNV is conducting an international workshop on financing domestic biogas plants in Bangkok,Thailand. The workshop represents an excellent opportunity for participants to exchange information about different financial instruments and to discuss the way forward.

Over the past years, SNV has been greatly succesful in promoting the use of biogas plants by Asian and African households.
The total capital costs of a domestic biogas plant including after sales service depend on the model, size and location, and may vary between Euro 200 and 600 in Asia and Euro 500 to 800 in Africa. The customer may collect some construction materials (sand, gravel, stones) and provide unskilled labour, resulting in a decrease of the required investment. But even then, the remaining costs will be beyond the financial capacity of the majority of rural households. This makes the availability of adequate financial instruments such as investment subsidies and credits paramount.

The two main objectives of the International Workshop are therefore:
-to exchange a maximum of information about the use of financial instruments among the participants: practitioners, researchers and policy makers;
-to enable participants to get a clear picture of the strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of using these instruments.

SNV is conducting the workshop on 22 and 23 October 2008 in Bangkok. The language of the Workshop will be English, no translation facilities are available.

The Workshop will present the ins and outs of the various financial instruments and their use in the framework of national biogas programmes in selected countries like PR China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Rwanda. A large part of the programme will be reserved to discuss  the advantages and disadvantages of the various instruments and the way forward. A detailed programme will be made available in September.

For more information about participation and registration please send an email to Mr. Wim J. Van Nes at SNV, wvannes@snvworld.org.

For more information on the SNV biogas programme, click here.