The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER)¹ and the Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA)² have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that establishes a 3-year collaboration between European and Eastern/Southern African energy regulators, which will be facilitated by COMESA³. The newly-elected President of CEER, Dr Annegret Groebel, and RAERESA Chief Executive Officer, Dr Mohamedain E. Self Elnasr, signed the MoU on 24 January 2019.

The aim of this CEER-RAERESA collaboration is primarily to facilitate capacity building in the Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Region (EA-SA-IO) through the spreading of best practice energy regulation. This will be achieved by short-term capacity-building activities including peer-to-peer training or on-site visits by European energy regulators to the EA-SA-IO region and study visits from African regulators to Europe. The programme is financed by the European Union’s 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Action Programme.

“CEER is delighted to both assist and learn from colleagues in Africa, sharing the expertise and knowledge in energy regulation across continents”, said Dr Annegret Groebel, CEER President.

“We are looking forward to putting the programme in place and achieving a harmonised, efficient and gender-sensitive regulatory environment in the EA-SA-IO region”, added Dr Mohamedain E. Self Elnasr, Chief Executive Officer, RAERESA.

The primary areas of the cooperation shall include:

• Exchange of knowledge and experience in regional regulatory institutional organisation and mandate;
• Exchange of knowledge and experience in enhancement of sustainable and competitive regional energy markets;
• Technical support to facilitate the development of regulations and guidelines for power trading, market rules and monitoring;
• Exchange of knowledge and experience on good practices for transparency, governance and consumer protection.

The first activity, training course, is expected to take place in early 2019.

ENDS (See Notes for Editors below)

1. The Council of European Energy Regulatory (CEER) is the voice of Europe’s national energy regulators. Its Members and Observers are the independent statutory bodies responsible for energy regulation. CEER, based in Brussels, deals with a broad range of energy issues including retail markets and consumers; distribution networks; smart grids; flexibility; sustainability; and international cooperation. CEER represents 37 energy regulatory authorities, comprising 29 Members (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) and 8 Observers (Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYROM, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and the Swiss Confederation). CEER’s training academy supports regulators in the daily job of being a regulator. See ceer.eu.

2. The Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) was officially launched in 2009 and came officially into existence through the signing of its constitution by seven energy regulators from COMESA countries, namely Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda and Sudan. Uganda joined RAERESA in 2013 and Seychelles and Zimbabwe joined in 2015. Burundi, Mauritius and Zambia joined in 2018. This brings the total number of countries with full membership status to thirteen (13) out of the 14 countries which have so far established their energy regulators. Eswatini (Swaziland) has an observer status.

3. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a free trade area with twenty one member states stretching from Libya to Swaziland. COMESA was formed in December 1994. COMESA is one of the pillars of the African Economic Community. In 2008, COMESA agreed to an expanded free-trade zone including members of two other African trade blocs, the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). See comesa.int.

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