Energy stakeholders to begin drafting TAPSEC operational plan

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Work on drafting an operational plan for the Technical Assistance Programme for Sustainable Energy in the Caribbean (TAPSEC) gets underway later this month.

National governments, key regional institutions and development agencies will meet for the first planning workshop of the TAPSEC from 24-26 April, in the Dominican Republic. The workshop will be hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the Dominican Republic.

The aim of the workshop is to provide a forum for strategic and implementing partners to discuss and reach consensus on drafting the operational plan to guide the TAPSEC programme. The draft operational plan will be used as a basis for discussion to set goals and planning activities for the first 20 months of the programme implementation by December 2019.

Emphasis will also be placed on the identification of country priorities, as efforts will be made to identify activities and initiatives for further technical support through the TAPSEC Programme. TAPSEC is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Union (EU) under the 11th European Development Fund.

The overall objective of TAPSEC is to support the implementation of the CARICOM Energy Policy and the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Road Map and Strategy (C-SERMS), as well as the National Energy Policy of the Dominican Republic. It is being jointly implemented by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Ministry of Energy and Mines in the Dominican Republic and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

TAPSEC is expected to focus on Climate Change, Environment and Sustainable Energy, in addition to addressing the sustainable development needs of the countries.

The main results that are expected from the four-year programme are:

• the implementation of regulatory frameworks that enable renewable energy and energy efficiency deployment;
• improvement in the region’s energy statistics and information management framework;
• the establishment of financing mechanisms for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects;
• improvements in the technical capacity within the key institutions and stakeholder groups.