The City of Karditsa mentoring in PROSPECT Learning Cycle 3

The Mentor ‘Development Agency of Karditsa (GR)’(ESEK) and Mentees ‘Municipality of Acquappesa (IT)’, ‘Municipality of Château-Thierry (FR)’, ‘Municipality of Sztum (PL)’ and ‘Municipality of Viseu (PT)’ will participate in the 3^rd Cycle of the PROSPECT Learning Programme, constituting the Group for Cross-Sectoral. The peer learning activities will be focalised on Cooperatives. +Mentors' Corner

During Step 1, an online session took place on the 15^th of May 2019, where Vasileios Bellis of ESEK, presented the "Establishment and Support of the Energy Cooperative of Karditsa (ESEK)", which was the first collective effort at country level for exploiting forest and agro-biomass. This was followed by a presentation on the Establishment of a Guarantee Financial tool in Greece.

During Step 2 of the Learning Programme, a second online session took place on the 17^th of May 2019, where Mentee representatives had the opportunity to present their own projects, pointing out their special needs as well as the respective sectors in which they intend to gain knowledge and experience.

The Mentees will visit the City of Karditsa in Greece to learn about best practices for Cooperatives

Step 3 took place on the 5th & 6th of November 2109 in Karditsa, Greece. It included the physical meeting, where representatives from all the participating cities and regions had the chance to talk in detail about all the stages of their project and become more familiar with clean energy best practices via targeted site visits.

Group Participants on a site visit in a biomass factory, Karditsa Greece

Group Participants learning form the mentors experience visit in Karditsa Greece

Replication/Transferability

The 4^th and last Step of the Programme took place on the 19th of December 2019. It included an online session dedicated to the assessment and evaluation of the peer learning activities.

Detailed action plans were submitted by the mentees, in light of the new-acquired knowledge gained from the mentor. Conditions for success and key parameters that could affect negatively the plans were also identified, along with a benchmark survey that encapsulated all the outcomes of the learning group.

The conditions for success and possible impediments varied much between the mentees. For example ALEC du Sud declared that the Legislative and Regulatory frameworks in place are sufficient, on the contrary the representative from the Municipality of Acquappesa thought this was an impediment for the replication of the knowledge gained.

The physical visit was a chance for all participants (mentees, facilitator, mentor, businessmen, lecturers) to exchange information, experiences and knowledge, coming from different contexts and approaches. In general, the main miles stones of the projects interesting the mentees are:

Elaboration of a financial analysis to assess the viability of the project

Analysis of the “groups of interest” (stakeholders) involved in it.

Establishment of a network of interested parties aiming at the organization of a discussion for the necessity of the RES use and energy saving in relation to the climate change.

Coordination of a debate in the “Social Economy Sector” aiming at the participation of citizens and the establishment of a collective initiative (eg. Energy Cooperative)

Investigation of funding tools or services, as mentioned above.