Within the framework of the outreach mission to Armenia, on October 13th, 2022, Mr. Christophe Frering, Team Leader of the EC “Covenant of Mayors East” regional project, visited Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia and had a working meeting with the Mr. Vardges Samsonayn, Mayor of Gyumri and the representatives of the local administration.

The main objective of the meeting was to establish direct high-level communication between the project management and the local administrations of Gyumri, aimed to introduce objectives and activities of the CoM East project in Armenia, encourage the CoM2020 signatory to extend commitments under the Initiative by joining the new Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, emphasize importance of appointment of an energy manager and timely development of the local climate and energy strategy.

“Our team, within the scope of its competences and capabilities, is happy to support Gyumri as well as other signatories in Armenia in achieving the common goal of the Covenant , i.e. accelerating the decarbonization of their territories, strengthening their resilience to adapt to unavoidable climate change impacts, and ensuring their citizens access secure, sustainable and affordable energy”, emphasized Mr. Frering.

The team leader also emphasized the importance of the participation of the Covenant signatories in the EU Sustainable Energy Weeks that are organized annually by the EC to bring together national and local authorities, private companies, projects, NGOs and citizens to promote initiatives aimed to save energy and move towards renewables for clean, secure and efficient energies. The partner of the Project Union of Communities of Armenia and the Project experts team support the communities in local level to organize Sustainable energy days.

“Together with the local partners, it has been decided to organize a number of online and offline events in Armenia under the EUSEW2022 in mid-November; hence and local authorities of signatory communities are very much encouraged to follow this initiative and organize their own local sustainable energy days”, noted Mr. Frering.

Mr. Samsonyan thanked Mr. Frering for the visit and confirmed the city's interest in joining the new Covenant.

“As you are aware, Gyumri joined the Covenant of Mayors in June 2014, voluntary committing to reduce CO2 emission by 20% by 2020, and shortly thereafter developed Sustainable Energy Action Plan. Therefore, the adhesion to the new Initiative and setting more ambitious targets is a logical continuation of the efforts of the city administration to ensure the green and sustainable development of our community, started back in 2014”, noted Mr. Samsonyan.

“It is noteworthy that along with the Covenant of Mayors, Gyumri has also joined the EBRD Green Cities program that strives to build a better and more sustainable future for cities and their residents by identifying, prioritizing and connecting cities’ environmental challenges with sustainable infrastructure investments and policy measures. To this end the Green City Action Plan of Gyumri has been developed and implemented. The document includes a detailed analysis of the city’s ecological-social context and specific actions to be done for improvement and increased resilience by 2035”, stated Mr. Samsonyan.

During the discussion, the Mayor briefed the participants of the meeting about the modernization of street lighting systems, energy efficiency improvement in municipal and residential buildings, introduction of electric buses and solar energy powered charging infrastructure for the public transport sector as well as other “green” projects implemented in Gumri with the financial support of the Government of Armenia, UNDP, EBDR and other donors.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Samsonyan signed the Letter of Intent confirming interest and willingness of the community to join the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.