History of the Centre on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency of SICA countries - SICREEE

The SICREEE has been created in response to the Central American needs within the sustainable energy area. Such needs were identified through a Needs Assessment performed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), jointly with the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), and the Central American Integration System (SICA), its Member States: Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

On December 2015, during the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Energy, held in El Salvador, it was given the mandate to the General Secretariat of SICA to start the coordination activities with UNIDO and thus develop the preparatory phase of SICREEE, with the support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA). During 2016 a needs assessment in the energy sector was carried out, through a consultancy that included visits to all 8 SICA member countries and subsequently a workshop was held in February 2017 in San Jose, Costa Rica, with the objective to validate the findings and present the project document of the Centre. On September 2018, the project document was approved, on September 2020, the cooperation agreement between UNIDO and SG-SICA was undersigned and during the first trimester of 2021 the activities of the first operational phase of the SICREEE initiated.