On 12-15 January 2015 the Energy Charter Secretariat together with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Islamic Development Bank Group held a highly successful training course on International Investment Agreements in Casablanca, Morocco. The course targeted policymakers and negotiators dealing with investment from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The general objective of the training course was to deepen the participants' understanding of international investment agreements, to identify and examine key issues, problems and interests of involved parties and to ensure that such agreements address sustainable development concerns.
Officials representing over forty countries actively contributed to the discussion led by invited speakers from the organising institutions, academia and the private sector. Participation of officials from the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and the Tunisian Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining in the training course was organised by the Energy Charter Secretariat in the framework of its capacity-building and awareness-raising activities.
Secretariat's Experts Dr. Matteo Barra and Mr. Zafar Samadov gave an analysis of the Energy Charter Treaty as the only multilateral treaty for the promotion and protection of energy investment and trade. They also made a presentation on the International Energy Charter, a political declaration open for signature by more than one hundred countries in The Hague on 20 May 2015.