The GTZ German Agency for Technical Cooperation is completing an ambitious program aiming at supporting Tunisian government’s efforts in sustainable development. The Chief project, Anselm Duchrow, focuses on the strategic role of the initiative launched by GTZ in Tunisia including strengthening the Industrial and entrepreneurship innovation process. Interview:
What does the initiative stand for?
The CDMJI is a Clean Development Mechanism, a tool under the framework agreement that allows us to doing business through emission reduction. Thanks to clean development projects, we produce emission reduction certificates that we can market throughout world.
The objective of this initiative?
It is important to note that this initiative aims to promote the mechanism of clean development in the Maghreb and the MENA region in general. The other objective is to connect Tunisian firms with German firms as part of a win-win partnership.
This initiative is funded by the German Ministry of Environment with focus on India and China in addition to MENA region.
In this network, we have the opportunity to share experiences over best practices for promoting Clean Development Mechanism.
Two years after its creation, can you give us an overview on the achievements made through this initiative?
We helped raise private sector awareness regarding opportunities provided. It is worth reminding that potential for clean development project is better known in Germany. To this end, we have supported businesses and project leaders of the region to showcase this mechanism in the exhibitions devoted to carbon market. As part of these meetings, Tunisian enterprises got the opportunity to make contacts not only with buyers of emission reduction but also with businesses providing specific know-how.
In another connection, we helped promote project ideas in the sectors that are not yet known (biogas, biomass), we brought together, within this framework, a company located in Sfax and a large German unit for the launch of a biomass venture.
We have also supported the pilot countries where we work in opportunities analysis for Clean Development Mechanism. These studies are available now and help develop dialogue with German and European investors.
For now, we focus on a NOC specific instrument, including activity program, a specific instrument that will help set up projects with smaller units.
In Tunisia, we managed to set up a project for LNDP validation in the context of solar water heater. Under this initiative, we tried to replicate this experience in other countries, namely Morocco and Egypt.
