News report

“A treasure of a funding instrument”

by Sofia Shabafrouz & GIZ/EUKI

At the 4th EUKI Conference, representatives from three EUKI projects and Dr Simon Marr from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) discussed the benefits of EUKI as a funding instrument.

The discussion started with a depiction of how EUKI impacts European cities on the road to energy efficiency and climate neutrality. Ada Ámon, Head of Budapest’s newly established climate department, explained that having a project financed from outside of the country made a difference: it set a different pace, had an imperative to deliver, raised salaries (attractive to people wanting to work in the environmental sector), made the local leadership give greater consideration to climate and energy issues, and created an international scene (travelling to other cities, learning and sharing experiences). This, she said, had created a new ecosystem within the municipalities where ideas could be promoted and recycled. This ecosystem had led to the emergence of NGOs, that is, ‘new generation officers’, she added with a smile. Having previously worked in non-governmental organisations, these officers were now moving into the municipalities themselves, making it easier for subsequent projects to obtain national funding further down the road.

“The EUKI facility firstly is one of the quickest, and secondly comes with the last conditionality and thirdly it can help kick-starters to generate other funders when continuing on a bigger volume.”