In the Budget Speech in late February, the South Africa government confirmed that it will continue and widen a Municipal EEDSM (energy efficiency demand side management) fund for another three-year cycle. The EEDSM programme is a grant fund for municipalities to implement energy efficient retrofits in city infrastructure.

The Indian city of Coimbatore was the host of a two-day workshop on 12-13 December, launching a REEEP-funded ICLEI project on Local Renewables. The project is taking Coimbatore as both an example and a resource in energy efficiency and renewable energy for two other emerging market cities: Ekurhuleni in South Africa and the Yogyakarta municipality in Indonesia.