Bern, June 19, 2018
– IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, signed an agreement today with the government of Switzerland to facilitate energy efficiency renovations in Ukraine’s residential sector.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) will provide up to $1.8 million to IFC Advisory Services to support legal reforms that will support energy-efficiency refurbishments by engaging with housing management companies on behalf of homeowners’ associations. Ukraine has one of the largest housing stocks in Europe, but many homes are old and inefficient. Poorly insulated buildings lose as much as 50 percent of their heat.
The initiative represents the third and the final phase of IFC’s Residential Energy Efficiency Advisory project in Ukraine, which started in partnership with SECO in 2010. The first two phases of the project achieved remarkable results, including the adoption of legislation that enabled energy efficiency reforms in the housing sector, up to $250 million in energy efficiency investments for individual households and homeowners’ associations, and the development of banking products for homeowners’ associations for energy efficiency upgrades.
Ambassador Raymund Furrer, Head of Economic Cooperation and Development, said: “The project reflects our joint aspiration to create sustainable local markets and to reach scale. It needs a long-term vision. In fact, the work we initiated in 2010 has kick-started a market that did not exist before. This market will also reach scale in CO2 emission reductions. By its end, the project is expected to deliver CO2 emission reductions that correspond to roughly 2% of the total Swiss annual CO2 output”.
“The agreement with Switzerland will be instrumental to our long-standing joint commitment to improving energy efficiency in Ukraine’s residential sector and contributing to the fight against climate change,” said IFC CEO Philippe Le Houérou. “The partnership with SECO is an example of how official development assistance can help create the right enabling environment and leverage private sector resources to deliver climate-smart and energy-efficient solutions.”
The agreement with Switzerland complements the Ukrainian Energy Efficiency Fund (EEF), a new initiative developed by the Ukrainian government, with combined support from the EU and Germany to provide grants to homeowners’ associations for energy efficiency renovations in multi-family buildings.
SECO is one of the largest partners to IFC Advisory Services. Cooperation between SECO and IFC Advisory Services first started in 1989.
About SECO
SECO is Switzerland’s competence center for all core issues relating to economic policy. SECO’s economic development cooperation strives to achieve inclusive sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Its activities aim to create more and better jobs, to enhance trade and competitiveness, to support effective institutions and services and to foster climate resilient economies. For more information, visit
www.seco-cooperation.admin.ch
About IFC
IFC—a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work with more than 2,000 businesses worldwide, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in the toughest areas of the world. In FY17, we delivered a record $19.3 billion in long-term financing for developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to help end poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
.
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