The Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region comprising Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, is known within the EBRD as SEMED.

The EBRD has been investing in the SEMED region since September 2012.

FINTECC is working in SEMED countries, to support the implementation of climate technologies.

The SEMED region is highly vulnerable to the risks of climate change. Water scarcity is a significant concern. Water is critical for key sectors of the economy such as energy, agriculture and tourism, as well as for human health.

There is also a significant reliance on climate-sensitive agriculture and a concentration of economic activities in coastal areas.

The region is also very dependent on energy. In fact, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), energy intensity in Africa, along with the Middle East, increased between 1998 and 2010, which ran counter to global trends in this period.

FINTECC has identified several barriers to successful technology transfer in the SEMED region. These include the high transaction costs associated with implementing climate technologies, caused by low capacity within the technical, legal and financial communities, and by the perceived lack of suitable and affordable energy efficiency technologies.

Information is not communicated effectively, meaning projects are often viewed as having even higher inherent technical and financial risks than is necessarily the case.

There is therefore the clear need for technology deployments that can act as demonstration projects to the relevant sectors.

In some cases there is also a lack of adequate regulatory frameworks, to support and incentivise climate technologies.

Where the technologies are implemented, knowledge is not being effectively shared between sectors. There is therefore a need to improve policies and establish good information-sharing networks.

Having defined the barriers to overcome, we are now working in SEMED in the following ways:

Investment support

We offer incentive grants to help companies prioritise climate technologies within their investment programmes. These include technologies that achieve energy, water or materials efficiency.

They also include those that increase business resilience to the effects of climate change. Our grants are primarily for climate technologies with low market penetration and good replicability potential within their participating country.

Incentive grants are available as a complement to EBRD financing and can sponsor up to 25 per cent of the cost of the specific technology.

The grants are capped at €400,000 for any one company and are payable after the installation and commissioning of the eligible climate technologies.

Technical support

FINTECC provides companies in SEMED with the following technical support:

The EBRD’s in-house energy and water efficiency specialists review energy, water and material efficiency potential in client operations and assist in identifying the best way to support them in implementing investment opportunities.

International specialists are available to conduct resource efficiency audits, helping companies to prioritise sustainable resource efficiency investments and understand the technical and financial feasibility of installing climate technologies within their context. Learn more about resource efficiency audits here.

Policy support

In the SEMED region FINTECC supports Morocco’s National Agency for Energy Efficiency (AMEE) to introduce Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) and labelling as required under the EE Law 47-09 of 2011. The activities and results of FINTECC policy support in Morocco are as follows:

• Four equipment types have been prioritized for regulation preparation: electric motors, transformers, refrigerators, air-conditioners.
• The consultants have drafted and submitted Ministerial decrees to AMEE for approval.
• Technical work has begun on the four product groups for preparing energy performance standards and labelling regulations.
• Technical work has been initiated for designing monitoring, verification and enforcement (MVE) protocol.
• Stakeholder workshops were held in February, in April and in November 2017.

Furthermore, the introduction of standards and labelling requirements is expected to generate 8% net savings in national electricity consumption within 15 to 20 years after these regulations are adopted and come into effect. The potential net cumulative emission reduction is projected to reach 36 Mt CO₂ by 2037.

In addition to the MEPS and labelling support, the IEA has produced a Policy Insights paper, with support from the EBRD and with inputs from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The paper will help policy-makers in Early Transition Countries and SEMED region understand the options for enabling climate technology implementation.

The FINTECC in Morocco is supported by Korean Government.