On March 6th and 7th, the Clima-Med project, funded by the EU, initiated a two-day workshop in Rabat where the project’s outputs and deliverables were presented, and their use and sustainability were discussed and promoted. The event was supported by the presence of Mr Jean Francois Moret from the EU Delegation in Morocco, the  representative of the Ministry of Energy transition and Sustainable Development, Mr Mustapha Bendehbi,  the President of the municipality of Salé and member of the executive council of the Moroccan Association of Presidents of Communal Councils, M. Omar Sentissi.

Representatives from more than 15 municipalities, Unions of municipalities, and several officials and associations joined to gain practical knowledge on preparing and implementing SEACAPs in the communes and understanding the available financing mechanisms to facilitate their access to essential financial resources.

In welcoming words, Mr Moret highlighted the EU-Morocco Green Partnership, which embodies the natural framework for implementing the SEACAPs concretely. He insisted on the EU Delegation’s availability in Morocco to use the European toolbox (bilateral cooperation, access to financing) and regional initiatives such as the Covenant of Mayors for the Mediterranean (CoM Med).

“This workshop comes in a very particular situation of climate change that our planet is experiencing,” said Mr Sentissi, “hence the importance of this event in providing us with useful tools for our cities in terms of access to energy and sustainable development and capitalising on the outputs of the Clima-Med Project”.

On the first day, the Clima-Med team kicked off the workshop with a presentation of the project’s activities and deliverables, such as the Climate Action Strategy (CAS), the Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plans (SEACAPs) prepared jointly with ten communes, and a SEACAP Preparation Manual. This newly developed and valuable tool provides detailed guidance for developing comprehensive plans and their communication component. Participants were also introduced to CoM Med, its objectives, pillars, and reporting platform.

The communes of Kenitra and Chefchaouen shared their successful examples and challenges while preparing these Plans with the audience.

Consolidation work was then carried out in an interactive format involving several groups, with participants engaged in four thematic points. Each group developed a draft roadmap that addressed a specific climate problem and proposed related solutions. Moreover, the ten partner cities of the Clima-Med project will further develop the objectives identified during the workshop and list the adaptation actions they intend to plan to achieve.

Mr Bendehbi welcomed Clima-Med’s learning-by-doing approach, which involved the communes’ active participation. He said that “this project has benefited government bodies, mainly local authorities, providing an opportunity to strengthen climate change governance and to develop the SEACAPs”.

On day 2, the presentation of the Climate Finance Guidebook and the methods of financing local actions prepared by the project team generated an enriching debate that revolved mainly around i) the lack of budget allocated to pre-feasibility studies necessary for the maturation of some municipal projects, ii) access to funding and iii) the critical need for support in the planning of SEACAPs which could include training, technical advice, and access to specialised resources, capacity-building workshops, integrating concrete case studies.

Continuing this workshop, the project team will accompany each of Marrakech and Figuig municipalities to prepare special SEACAPs on “the preservation of the medina and its heritage” and “the conservation of the Oasis”, respectively.

It will support the demands that surfaced during the workshop, namely providing technical support and capacity-building in the preparation of the new municipalities’ SEACAPs, establishing the SEACAP Support Mechanism to solve the governance problem at the municipal level, the adhesion of new municipalities to CoM Med, and the identified objectives.

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