ProBEC participates in the 31st Meeting of SADC Energy Officials and Ministers

Luanda Angola from 27 -29 April 2010

This was considered to be an extremely important meeting for ProBEC because it was an opportunity to put forward several issues to the Ministers for approval. ProBEC submitted the following points to the Ministers' meeting for approval.

1. Ministers are invited to urge senior officials to develop and implement national roadmaps based on the SADC Regional Energy Access Strategy and Plan of Action. The national roadmaps should be submitted to the Secretariat by October 2010 for consolidation into a regional Road Map to be used for resource mobilisation.

2. Members are invited to

2.1 approve and recommend to Council the creation of a SADC funded position of Energy Officer - Biomass into which a SADC national will be appointed and

2.2direct the Secretariat to facilitate the establishment of the above post within its structures to ensure continuity of coordination of biomass activities and programmes at regional level.

3. Ministers are invited to direct senior officials assisted by the Secretariat to take full advantage of the SADC carbon facility (in the process of being established) that would guarantee long term revenue stream for supporting basic energy activities, which is traditionally neglected and underfunded and to ensure that all initiatives to exploit the carbon potential in member states maximize public benefit.

4. Ministers are invited to urge senior officials to be acquainted with the operations of the proposed basket fund and support its establishment.

5. Ministers are invited to direct member states to

5.1 provide direct financial support to local structures tasked with implementing ProBEC activities from now to post 2010,

5.2 identify local focal point organisations by the end of June 2010 and submit their names to the Secretariat.

6. Ministers are invited to direct officials to closely monitor the development of the SADC Carbon Market strategy and review it for approval at the next meeting.

7. The ministers are invited to adopt the SADC framework for Sustainable Biofuels Development, in order to promote fair equitable and environmentally sustainable use of biofuels in SADC.

While points 1 and 6 are not directly related to the work of ProBEC, they impact on it.

In the discussion on carbon and the SADC carbon facility it became clear that there is still a low level of understanding of the issues and concept – this lead to the inclusion of a paragraph in the text that reads 'Ministers are invited to note that carbon trading is a complex process requiring that additional awareness of the process and capacity building be undertaken to ensure that Member States understands the approach to access the facility, to ensure that returns accrue to the right beneficiaries. Secretariat will liaise with ICP's to secure financial and technical resources for this activity.'

All proposals were adopted and there was a lot of discussion about the carbon facility and the basket fund. The SADC secretariat will approach donors for funding for additional capacity building in carbon.

This will be ProBEC's last SADC Energy Ministers meeting as the next meeting is scheduled for after the closure of ProBEC.