Moldova hosts an international conference titled “Combatting the energy poverty in Europe: challenges, lessons learned and ways to be followed”. During the high-level dialogue, the guests discuss the way Moldova managed to go through the energy crisis in the last years, providing compensations in invoice for the household consumers and economic agents and unveiled this as a success story.
The event is organized by the Labour and Social Protection Ministry, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and brings together high-level representatives from EU countries, international organizations, national and international experts with competences in the field.
In his opening speech, Prime Minister Dorin Recean expressed appreciation for the external partners for the contribution provided to Moldova in complicated moments. He stressed the need to boost the economic development, enhance the energy efficiency and improve the citizens’ living standards.
“We want to enhance the energy efficiency, improve the mechanism of invoices’ compensation, make it as fair as possible, so that we make sure that the families which need the greatest support receive the biggest compensations. Looking into the future, we are concerned about the improvement of the citizens’ living, turning to good account of our experience, as well as the one of the international organizations. The government is focused on the economic development and on providing new ways of support for the citizens. The best form of social protection is the providing with a well-paid job,” Prime Minister Dorin Recean said.
UNDP Director of Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Ivana Zivkovic, said that “the recent assessment of the impact of the Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund, carried out by the government and UNDP, shows a significant effect of the compensations on the reduction of the energy and monetary poverty, as well as promising results as regards the impact of the compensations on the consumption of energy, which did not increase.”
According to a study carried out by UNDP, over 60% of Moldova’s families are hit by energy poverty. The compensations for energy provided last year diminished the level of energy poverty by 43% and had a major effect in the case of the most vulnerable families – 83% of the impact of natural gas invoices was compensated. (Moldpres/Business World Magazine)
