Mayors, deputy mayors and officials from 12 municipalities gathered in the city of M’diq in the northern region of Morocco to deepen their knowledge in key areas necessary for the transition to a low-carbon economy at the local level.

Over the course of the 2-day workshop, international experts from Egypt, Jordan and Spain covered the topics of Measures and verification, Energy Management Systems, and Monitoring and Evaluation. The training is part of the ongoing support provided by the SUDEP South SM programme as a European Union funded initiative.

The President of the municipality of Chefchaouen, Mr SEFFIANI, welcomed the participants and invited them to continue the exchange between municipal teams and technical partners of SUDEP in order to replicate successful experiences in other municipalities.

In Morocco, the municipalities of Chefchaouen and Kenitra are the beneficiaries of SUDEPSouth with the Moroccan association of Eco-cities (AMEV), GERES and the Institute for Development, Environment and Energy (IDE-E) as technical partners. The workshops were organised by AMEV and 1 of 4 of the participants to the workshops were women, which reflects recent efforts in Morocco to increase the representation of women in public service.

The SUDEP-South project began in early 2015 with 12 cities in 6 countries of the southern Mediterranean. The objective of the SUDEP Programme is to assist local authorities in responding to the sustainable energy challenges and to enable them to implement sustainable energy actions leading to energy savings, energy efficiency and more use of renewable energy sources such as solar energy.

SUDEP support mechanism activities are mainly focused on:

• -Assistance to local authorities and reinforcing their capacities and their partners in the implementation of the demonstration projects.
• -Promotion for the replication of innovative actions and the visibility of the programme’s results.
• -Creation of an enabling environment for the exchange of good practices between project beneficiaries.
• -And finally the development of their own local strategies to ensure widespread dissemination and sustainability of their projects.