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Europe and the world are facing major and historic challenges - the most important of which concern curbing global warming and protecting the climate. The European Commission's Green Deal has focused more attention on the Eastern European region and on the great need for action and enormous decarbonisation potential that exists here.

IWO has been dedicated to precisely this need and potential since it was founded in 2001 by the German Federal Ministry of Construction in recognition of the region's relevance in the field of large-scale building renovation, energy efficiency improvement and climate compatibility. Accordingly, the founding purpose of the association was to support the countries in Eastern Europe in the transformation of their housing and construction industries.

The birth of the non-profit association Initiative Wohnungswirtschaft Osteuropa e.V., which is founded on the initiative and with the support of the then Federal Ministry of Building. Sub-department head Thomas Janicki at the Ministry, former association director Horst von Emmerich (ꝉ) and the managing director of KBE Fenstersysteme GmbH Uwe Pieper are among the eight founding members and thus helpers at the birth.

The association emerged from the initiative of the same name, which had been part of the German Association for Housing, Urban Development and Spatial Planning (dv) - now a member of IWO - since 1999.

The association, whose team initially consists of managing director Knut Höller, moves into its offices in Karl-Liebknecht-Straße.

IWO prepares the first practical project and brings it to fruition: In Riga, since the fall of the Wall, the first apartment building in standardised, prefabricated construction with 72 flats is being extensively refurbished to increase energy efficiency. The Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and the Riga Municipality had previously initiated this project, and the founding of IWO and involvement of some of its founding members contribute significantly to the actual realisation of this first energy-refurbished prefabricated building in Eastern Europe.

Even before the Baltic states joined the EU, IWO succeeded in intensifying its cooperation with the Baltic states within the framework of the Federal Ministry for the Environment's "Environmental Innovation Programme Abroad": At the time, the programme provided financial resources for loans and interest rate reductions for the energy-efficient refurbishment of apartment buildings in Latvia. The available loan was not used up by the Latvian recipients, but a total of seven buildings were renovated to make them more energy efficient, similar to the Riga model project. IWO's involvement in Jelgava, the fourth largest city in Latvia, stems from this project and continues to this day. The focus is on the municipal housing management company JNIP, which has been striving and active for many years to make its building stock more energy-efficient and, in the future, to make affordable rental housing possible - a market that is hardly or not at all developed in Latvia, as in most post-Soviet countries.

IWO is part of two large multilateral Interreg projects in the Baltic Sea region. Many of today's partnerships and cooperations with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Belarus stem from this time.

From 2006 to 2008, IWO was the initiator and coordinator of the BEEN Baltic Energy Efficiency Network for the Housing Stock.

From 2009 to 2012, IWO coordinated the Urb.Energy Energy-Efficient and Integrated Urban Development Action project and has since been increasingly involved in the field of sustainable urban and neighbourhood development.

Ukraine is added as a focus country. The engagement begins with a private-public partnership (PPP) project in the field of energy-efficient building refurbishment.

Later, from 2015, IWO will be active in Ukraine as a partner of the German Energy Agency (dena): The "German-Ukrainian Efficient Houses Model Project" primarily addresses flat owners of large prefabricated residential buildings and accompanies them in the project of holistic energy refurbishment of their houses.

In the course of the project, the "Energy Efficiency Fund" will be developed and installed in Ukraine by 2020 - also with the advice and recommendation of dena and IWO - and provided with Ukrainian state funds as well as financial support from the European Union and the German Federal Government.

Foundation of the International Real Estate Management Association (IVIM) in Minsk. The idea and concept for this association emerged from a previous IWO project in the Belarus funding programme. IWO is a founding member and has two positions on the board. It actively supported the work of the association for the professional education and training of managers, the increase of refurbishment rates in its member countries (Belarus, Germany, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine) and the preparation and recommendation for appropriate legal frameworks until the dissolution of the association in 2022. The network continues the professional exchange as the newly founded International Society of Real Estate Managers.

Following cooperation in multilateral projects, the Federal Environment Ministry and the Federal Environment Agency have provided the opportunity to implement a bilateral project with Lithuania: selected neighbourhoods in three Lithuanian cities are developing concepts for the implementation and financing of redeveloping their respective neighbourhoods based on the model of the German KfW programme "Energy-efficient Neighbourhood Redevelopment". The Lithuanian Ministry of the Environment and the Lithuanian development bank ViPA are closely involved in the project.

In 2011 and 2012, the focus countries Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were added as part of various funding projects.

Since then, IWO has been expanding the respective bilateral cooperation as well as the cooperation between the countries of Central Asia with project activities.

Funded by the EU, IWO and its partners in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are able to initiate the professionalisation of housing management in the two project countries and implement the Pro House project from 2017. From 2020, the results and approaches from this project will be used in the follow-up project PROMHOUSE to further establish the professional training and working methods of housing managers, thus setting an important course for the urgently needed energy refurbishment of the building sector in both countries.

With the launch of the Ministry-funded European Climate Initiative (EUKI) in 2017, German-Lithuanian cooperation in the field of neighbourhood and urban redevelopment can be intensified. In the training project "Training of Managers for Urban Redevelopment in Lithuania", responsible municipal staff from 22 cities in Lithuania are trained for 18 months in the field of integrated neighbourhood and urban area redevelopment and draft redevelopment concepts for selected neighbourhoods.

The exchange with Lithuanian partners continues to this day and the project is used as an example for new projects.

IWO is beginning to address the concept of cooperatives as an approach for the Eastern European region at various levels. In 2018 and 2019, IWO is co-organising two international cooperative symposia in Ukraine.

In 2019, Knut Höller is involved in an OECD study on the housing market in Latvia, including future approaches to affordable housing. During this time, IWO is getting involved in the first cooperative under European law, "Living in Metropolises LiM SCE", which is being promoted by 1892 eG and with the commitment of the expert network European Federation for Living EFL, of which IWO is a member. In 2020, LiM, together with other German partners and IWO members, will become a partner in a DBU-funded project that will test the construction of a model wood hybrid multi-family house and the rental of the flats there according to the cooperative principle in Jelgava/Latvia. IWO will continue to devote more attention to the topic of cooperatives in the future in order to develop solutions for the diversification of the widely privatised housing markets in Eastern Europe.

In Latvia, IWO has also been supporting the municipal housing management company JNIP since 2020 in applying for and, after JNIP is awarded in 2021, implementing a large loan from the EIB's ELENA facility.

Through the EUKI calls for proposals, IWO can resume its cooperation with Polish partners and is involved in bi- and trilateral projects with Poland for the first time. The "EDINA" project is based on the German-Lithuanian EUKI project "Training of Managers for Urban Redevelopment in Lithuania" and is dedicated to the need for energy-efficient redevelopment and revitalisation of neighbourhoods and so-called "Special Revitalisation Areas" in Poland.

Under the leadership of the Polish Energy Conservation Foundation and with the Technical University of Riga, IWO is implementing the EUKI project "CLI-MA" in parallel, in the course of which Polish professionals are being trained as "climate managers" - modelled on the training "Klimaverwalter", which the European Education Centre for the Housing and Real Estate Industry (EBZ), a board member of IWO, and the Association of Property Administrators Germany (VDIV), a member of IWO, have successfully piloted in Germany.

2020 - also the year in which the Corona pandemic began, which has also had a noticeable impact on our work and projects since then. IWO has converted many of its formats to online and at least significantly reduced its carbon footprint - the otherwise regular trips to our Eastern European neighbours, Central Asia and the Caucasus have been reduced to a minimum. As with many other organisations, the association's project business thrives on personal encounters and contacts. Nevertheless, we are steering through the situation together with all the other people affected and can remain in good spirits so far.

In the 20th year of our existence and after 17 years in the IHZ on Friedrichstraße, IWO has moved to Alt-Moabit at Spreebogen and in the direct vicinity of Gewobag, with which the association has been connected for some time on several issues.

The need for travel will certainly be weighed more carefully in the future, even if the situation eases - for the sake of the climate and because it has now been proven that some aspects of project cooperation also function sufficiently digitally. Nevertheless, in what will soon be our third pandemic year and at the same time our anniversary year, we are looking forward to meeting our members, partners and supporters live and in colour more often again.

24 February 2022 - We can hardly believe our eyes in the face of the images of Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine. We are aghast and agrieved. Many valued and long-standing partners and friends of IWO live in Ukraine and are now in great danger, as is the entire population there. From one day to the next, they are faced with the ruins of their cities and lives. The IWO team is doing everything it can to help on the ground and support refugees in Berlin and Germany.

If you would like to donate to Ukraine and offer help to refugees: here are some recommendations for concrete support initiatives.

RAZAM.de - Belarusian Community

GdW - The German Housing Industry

German-Ukrainian Forum e.V.

A small celebration event was planned for May to mark the 20th anniversary of the IWO. We do not feel like celebrating, our concern and sympathy are too great, and we will postpone the plans for the time being.

All that remains is the hope for a speedy end to the war and the great suffering in Ukraine.

Stand with Ukraine | Слава Україні!

A good reason to celebrate

A short CV - special highlights from 20 years of IWO

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