The document provides an overview of the specific situation of solar and renewable building codes in the MENA region. Solar/renewable building codes are a popular demand–side support scheme by the industry. Although a small number of 22 countries have implemented such policies yet, among them are two from the MENA Region - Israel and Jordan. The countries of the Golf Cooperation Council (GCC) take a completely different path to green and sustainable buildings following the World Green Building Council. There are 823 premises in the United Arab Emirates, 218 in Saudi Arabia and 97 in Qatar that have a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation. This rating scheme is mostly voluntary and allows gaining points in a wide range of categories including energy, water, material, indoor environmental quality etc. The impact of such green building codes for solar thermal technology is rather small. Only a certain part of the high-rated buildings rely on onsite renewable energy production. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi made the green building code Estidama mandatory for new buildings. Qatar announced a compulsory regulation for 2016 - based on the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) developed in the region. Solar obligations are not discussed in these countries, but most probably also not known yet. The world Map of solar/renewable building codes gives in graphic form an overview of all implemented building codes worldwide, with a special focus to Europe, differentiating by colours, special items and comments.

A deep analysis of several SOs from different countries all around the world in order to summarize success factors and recommendations to guide the development of effectively operating SOs in the Local Local or Central Authorities belonging to the countries partners of Med Desire.

This document focuses on the financial support mechanisms to stimulate the diffusion of solar technologies in the Mediterranean countries. It describes the scenarios of incentives available and their effectiveness and efficiency, the possible best practices and some conclusions about the lessons learnt and the possible intervention by policy makers. After a general overview on support mechanism typologies, the paper focuses on finance mechanisms for distributed solar technologies and energy efficiency support. An overview of support mechanisms in target countries (Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia) and on the barriers to be removed in target countries is provided, with a special focus on access to credit issues.

Executive Summary of the document on financial support mechanisms benchmark.