Cuba continues to work towards sustainable economic development

Renewable energy sources have a crucial role to play in achieving sustainable economic development at the global level, in which resources are used wisely. To this end, it is essential to plan, both at local and national level, strategic measures and instruments that can measure the impact of the policies and strategies to be implemented.

But how can energy efficiency and its changes be monitored and how can strategic plans be designed to avoid energy losses and promote sustainable development? One of the key instruments in this sense are “energy indicators“, fundamental tools for public policy makers to measure the state and evolution of different energy aspects related to sustainable development. But to be truly useful, they must be tailored to the specific circumstances, priorities, and capacities of each country.

Through the European project FRElocal, which is part of the Support Programme for Energy Policy in Cuba, with whom we work closely since the project “Exchange of experiences in Cuba“, a theoretical-practical workshop has been carried out with the aim of promoting the use of energy indicators for sustainable local development in Cuba. This workshop has shown Cuban specialists how to design tools to develop energy indicators associated with renewable energy sources in isolated communities and rural areas of the country.

The workshop has allowed participants to establish collaborative working partnerships, identify good practices in relation to local energy transformation and, in addition, they have worked in a practical way on how to construct economic, ecological, energy, social and cultural indicators, considering the diversity of local and national characteristics that can be used later to carry out an impact assessment.

This knowledge will be replicated among specialists in all sectors, which will allow for the design and implementation of appropriate indicators to improve energy-productive capacity and energy efficiency towards local and Cuban sustainable development.