The General Secretary for the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), Madi Hamada, and the regional Director of the French Development Agency (FDA), Matthieu Discour, signed a partnership agreement for the regionalisation of the Energy Efficiency Programme (REEP) on December 16th, 2016.
This agreement is in alignment with the COI’s will to support the duplication of the Energy Efficiency National Programme (EENP), currently implemented in Mauritius, in the other countries which benefit from its IOC-ENERGIES programme (Comoros, Madagascar and Seychelles). This partnership between the IOC and the FDA has been signed as part of the IOC-ENERGIES programme which is financed by the European Union. It aims to expand the EENP to the rest of the Indian Ocean region.
‘The regional energy efficiency programme is a concrete example of how our regional cooperation can be useful’, explained the IOC’s General Secretary. ‘Based on our experience in Mauritius, the IOC will offer a joint approach to the business-owners and tertiary sector-operators from the other member states so we will be able to create together a real growth lever for sustainable development for our companies, and our countries.’
Matthieu Discour, in turn, emphasised the importance of the EENP’s involvement in the project – as ‘a true public-private partnership’ – as well as the REEP’s participation in the implementation of international commitments regarding the fight against climate change. ‘The IOC is fulfilling its mission fully by capitalising on an initiative that works and by trying to make it happen in the other member states’.
The FDA and Business Mauritius, in partnership with the Mauritian Ministry of Energy and Public Services, launched the EENP in 2013. The aim of the programme being to carry out energy audits in Mauritian private companies. ‘This national programme will help the country save 40MW and Rs 1,4 billion (which is about 37 million €) for Mauritian companies, thanks to the implementation of energy efficiency’, explained Raj Makoond, CEO of Business Mauritius. ‘The dynamic is now ongoing, at a regional level, and it will benefit from the experience of the Mauritian EENP and all the lessons learned in the process will certainly help the other member states’, he concluded.