REEEP project meeting in Johannesburg
Representatives of ICLEI South Asia and ICLEI Africa attended the REEEP project meetings in Johannesburg from 3-4 July 2012. Under Call 8 of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) programme, ICLEI South Asia is leading a funded project entitled South-south Cooperation between cities in India, Indonesia and South Africa in partnership with ICLEI Africa and ICLEI South East Asia. The meeting saw managers from 25 projects from around the world come together to share lessons learnt from challenges and successes mid-way through the project duration.
The agenda for the two days was interactive with the showcasing of all projects through poster exhibitions, where project managers could interact, ask questions and stimulate discussions. The agenda also provided the opportunity for key topics to be discussed through panels which included: building political will and persuading government; final steps for financial solutions; market rules of the game for up-scaling projects; and lastly, encouraging stakeholder and community participation.
The ICLEI team benefited greatly from the participatory discussions and interactions, learning valuable experiences from other projects that are relevant and applicable to the current projects that ICLEI is undertaking in 3 cities under ICLEI’s Local Renewable Initiative, these being Coimbatore, India; Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa. These are taking place between December 2011 and March 2013.
International project launch workshop
ICLEI South Asia and the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation, with the support of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) launched the project ‘Local Renewables: South-South cooperation between cities in India, Indonesia and South Africa’, at a workshop organized in Coimbatore on 12th December 2011.
With an aim to promote knowledge exchange between cities in the developing world, the project cities of Ekurhuleni, South Africa and Yogyakarta, Indonesia will join ICLEI's Local Renewables (LR) network to increase the uptake of renewable energy and energy efficiency at the local level. They will be guided by the resource city of Coimbatore, India, an LR city. Project cities, the host city officials, ICLEI and REEEP representatives, Indian solar cities and local stakeholders from Coimbatore participated in the workshop. The Mayor of Coimbatore, Mr. S M Vellusamy and the Municipal Commissioner, Mr. T K Ponnusamy along with other key officials of the Coimbatore Corporation were present to inaugurate the workshop.The workshop, spread over two days, consisted of an inaugural day that formally launched the project, and a day of site visits for the visiting participants. The inaugural day consisted of extensive presentations by the cities present about on going and planned initiatives at the local level on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Participants visited Coimbatore's renewable energy and energy efficiency sites, such as the wind-solar PV hybrid system installed at the city-owned bus terminal, the next day.
The workshop provided an opportunity for the international and Indian city officials to interact extensively and to view the range of activities that could be undertaken to comprehensively address the uptake of renewable energy and energy efficiency at the local level. Over the next 15 months, the project cities of Ekurhuleni in South Africa and Yogyakarta in Indonesia will go through the steps of the Local Renewables initiative (www.local-renewables.org) with the guidance of Coimbatore.
