The SUDEP South has actively participated in the ‘EU for Climate Action & Sustainable Energy In the Neighbourhood South’ Conference where its last outputs were presented. This Regional Conference, organized by DG NEAR, gathered more than 160 participants from the Southern Neighbourhood countries participating in three EU funded projects: Clima South, CES-MED and SUDEP South.

Representatives from the project participating municipalities and national focal points and regional authorities of  Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia were present. Representatives of private sector and civil society from the mentioned countries also actively participated on the open discussions. Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, closed the first day of sessions together with Mr. Michael Kohler, Director for Neighbourhood South, EU Neighbourhood & Enlargement, by stressing the importance of local actors in the implementation of the Paris Agreements, and the importance of SUDEP South on this task.  

SUDEP South participating municipalities presented their main outputs, sharing their best practises –and also the not so successful ones- with partners and neighbours colleagues, building a community of practises that enrich the knowledge of municipalities participating on such EU funded activities.

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:

1.      Assistance to local authorities and reinforcing their capacities and their partners in the implementation of the demonstration projects.

2.      Promotion for the replication of innovative actions and the visibility of the programme’s results.

3.      Creation of an enabling environment for the exchange of good practices between project beneficiaries.

4.      And finally the development of their own local strategies to ensure widespread dissemination and sustainability of their projects.