MENA Civil Society Position Paper

Civil society organizations dealing with the environment and renewable energy in the MENA region want to cooperate on the protection of the climate and get engaged in the political decision-making processes of promoting renewable energy in the MENA region. Therefore 23 NGOs, particularily from the MENA region, agreed on the attached position paper which will be submitted for the UfM Ministerial Meeting on Energy aiming to adopt the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP) in Brussels in December 2013.

In this paper the 23 undersigning civil society stakeholders welcome the main objectives of the MSP under the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) to create enabling environments for a sustainable low-carbon energy future throughout the Mediterranean region as an important step towards sustainable low-carbon development.

From a civil society perspective, however, scaling-up low-carbon technologies and achieving a fair partnership on an sustainable power system across the Mediterranean is both an economic and a social challenge. Turning this challenge into opportunities will require combined efforts from all relevant stakeholders involved to bring about sustainable and equitable outcomes.

As highlighted in the recent summit of economic and social councils: a closer union for the civil society at the headquarters of the UfM in November 2013, “there can be no successful union between North and South of the Mediterranean without the involvement of civil society (…)”.

Therefore the undersigning civil society stakeholders provide 14 key recommendations to the participants of the UfM Ministerial Meeting on Energy taking place on the 11th of December 2013 in Brussels.