COMMEND & LEAP

COMMEND (COMMunity for ENergy environment & Development) is an international initiative designed to foster a community among energy analysts working on energy for sustainable development.  COMMEND is managed by the U.S. Center of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in collaboration with four leading international institutions: Fundación Bariloche in Argentina, ETC International in the Netherlands, ENDA-TM in Senegal, and the Energy Research Centre in South Africa (ERC). COMMEND is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS)

A premise of COMMEND is that institutional and human capacity for energy and environmental analysis is in acutely short supply, and that Southern analysts are isolated from their colleagues in other institutions and from sources of institutional support in both the North and South.  In short, there is a pressing need for initiatives that can professionalize sustainable energy analysis in the South and increase its role in decision-making.

COMMEND is built upon a previous effort led by SEI to create a set of transparent and user-friendly software tools for strategic analysis of energy and environmental policy issues. That project has resulted in the creation of an advanced Windows-based software tool named LEAP, the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system, which has already been widely disseminated and applied in hundreds of organizations in the developing world.  COMMEND has been designed in part to provide technical support, training, and the exchange of knowledge needed by this new worldwide community of energy analysts.  However, experience of using LEAP is not required to participate in the COMMEND initiative.

More Information about LEAP & COMMEND can be found on the COMMEND website.