Representatives of the NAMA Facility came to Tunisia for their first in-person meeting since the start of the pandemic. Co-organised by the Tunisian NAMA Support Project “Scaling-up Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the Building Sector (Building NAMA)”, the meeting brought together representatives from four countries, primarily from the Africa and Asia & Pacific regions as well as the NAMA Facility’s Board and the Technical Support Unit.
8 climate experts from around the world gathered in Tunisia for the first in-person meeting of the NAMA Facility since 2019. Convening e-mobility professionals from Cabo Verde, energy efficiency expert from Mongolia and solar energy specialists from Gambia, the workshop fostered international, cross-cutting dialogue on the fight against climate change.
The NAMA Support Project (NSP) Workshop
Throughout the three-day workshop, the NAMA Facility and its NAMA Support Projects (NSPs) discussed different topics pertaining to monitoring, gender and knowledge management.
As NSPs around the world face similar challenges, Dr. Sören David, Head of the NAMA Facility’s Technical Support Unit, highlighted that the in-person meeting is an important opportunity for knowledge exchange and learning.
“As a knowledge and learning hub, the NAMA Facility focuses on knowledge sharing between projects to enable them to be scaled up and replicated. The NSP workshop in Tunisia provides a rare occasion for NSPs to exchange lessons learnt in person.”
– Dr. Sören David (Head of the NAMA Facility’s Technical Support Unit).
The workshop sessions ranged from presentations from NAMA Support Projects in the Asia & Pacific and Africa regions to working groups led by the Technical Support Unit of the NAMA Facility on gender and monitoring topics. The TSU also provided an open format for project representatives to raise additional topics of interest, highlighting how the NAMA Facility places value on open communication.
Site visit and exchange between NAMA Facility Board and Tunisia “Building NAMA” (NSP)
On the third day of the workshop, the workshop atendees visited a landfill and a hospital that received solar emergency power supply as part of a Covid-19 relieve programme in Tunisia.
Representatives of the Tunisian Ministry of Energy (MIME) and the national Energy Agency (ANME) welcomed the Board members in Hammamet and discussed the implementation of the Building NAMA project with the Board of the NAMA Facility during a high-level meeting. “The Building NAMA is a large-scale effort to supply the Tunisian middle class with green electricity”, explained ANME Director General Fathi Hanchi.Through a subsidy programme, households will receive an interest rate as well as an investment subsidy and repay their loan through their monthly electricity bill. Hanchi and his team together with the German Development Agency (GIZ) designed a financial mechanism for an easy and affordable access to residential PV systems.
The NSP has a EUR 15 million budget and is funded by the NAMA Facility, a joint initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities (KEFM), the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the European Union and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The NSP will run until 2024.
