FELICITY II: Advancing Decarbonization and Emission Reduction in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Since its launch in Ukraine in 2022, the FELICITY II pro­gram — a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), sup­port­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Cli­mate Action through the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI) — has made sig­nif­i­cant strides in pro­mot­ing low-car­bon and cli­mate-resilient infra­struc­ture.

Ukraine: Enhancing Sustainable Water Infrastructure

In Ukraine, FELICITY II has sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tributed to the mod­ern­iza­tion of water sup­ply and waste­water sys­tems. A land­mark achieve­ment is the €100 mil­lion “Ukraine Water Recov­ery” frame­work loan agree­ment between the EIB and the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment. This fund­ing aims to restore and improve crit­i­cal water ser­vices, pro­vid­ing sta­ble, safe, and qual­i­ty water sup­ply to over 600,000 res­i­dents, includ­ing inter­nal­ly dis­placed per­sons.

Key mile­stones include the sign­ing of Mem­o­ran­dums of Under­stand­ing with five water util­i­ties in Sumy, Khmel­nyt­skyi, Talne, Per­vo­maisk, and Hor­ish­ni Plavni.

These agree­ments pave the way for projects that will enhance water and waste­water infra­struc­ture, lead­ing to:

— An esti­mat­ed annu­al CO₂ emis­sions reduc­tion between 2,700 and 8,000 tones

— Up to 6.3 mil­lion kWh of elec­tric­i­ty sav­ings per year

— Improved eco­log­i­cal con­di­tions in rivers such as the Psel, South­ern Bug, and Hirskyi Tikych

Beyond infra­struc­ture, FELICITY II sup­ports the devel­op­ment of new state con­struc­tion stan­dards for the water sec­tor, facil­i­tat­ing Ukraine’s progress towards EU inte­gra­tion. The pro­gram also empha­sizes capac­i­ty build­ing, offer­ing train­ing in inter­na­tion­al project man­age­ment to ensure the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of these ini­tia­tives.

Kazakhstan: Promoting Energy-Efficient Housing

In Kaza­khstan, FELICITY II sup­ports the part­ner­ship between EIB Glob­al and the Kaza­khstan Hous­ing Com­pa­ny (KHC) to expand financ­ing for envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and ener­gy-effi­cient homes across the coun­try. The agree­ment, signed dur­ing the Astana Inter­na­tion­al Forum by EIB Vice-Pres­i­dent Kyr­i­a­cos Kak­ouris and KHC Chair­man Altay Kuzdibayev, reflects a deep­en­ing part­ner­ship between the EU and Cen­tral Asia. Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, KHC aims to improve urban liv­ing stan­dards and intro­duce a new bench­mark for sus­tain­able hous­ing in Kaza­khstan. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ), togeth­er with the Ger­man Ener­gy Agency (dena), will pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port to ensure high ener­gy-effi­cien­cy stan­dards are met. This coop­er­a­tion offers a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to accel­er­ate the low-car­bon trans­for­ma­tion of Kazakhstan’s build­ing sec­tor.

FELICITY II exem­pli­fies the pow­er of inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion in dri­ving the tran­si­tion to low-car­bon economies in East­ern Europe and Cen­tral Asia. By fos­ter­ing sus­tain­able infra­struc­ture and enhanc­ing insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ties, the pro­gram not only con­tributes to emis­sion reduc­tions but also lays the ground­work for resilient and cli­mate-friend­ly futures in Ukraine, Moldo­va, Kaza­khstan and Uzbek­istan.

The FELICITY II project is imple­ment­ed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in coop­er­a­tion with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank, with sup­port from the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy (BMWE) under the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).