Since 90ies, in all INOGATE countries the dominant technical mean for heating buildings is either district heating with poor efficiency and very bad financial situation, either individual heating also not very efficient.

Other schemes for heating (central heating at a building level or at a block level, ...) which are largely used in EU are little used due to the absence of proper housing management structures (e.g. Homeowners associations _HOA) and a lack of understanding by most players, including local officials.

The local governments have a prominent role in addressing heating issues, which are grandly local, by coordinating both sides: heat production and heat demand side.

Local authorities should not only properly allocate their meagre resources between demand side measures, improvement of the heat production side and set up of new capacities. They might also show examples in their own premises, lead the way to convince homeowners to care by themselves about their buildings and prescribe energy-efficient solutions in new buildings.

A Workshop was considered as the best way to get involved and active a group of local officials implied in such challenge. The objectives of this seminar were to enable the attendees to foster the design and the implementation of a rational municipal heating strategy in their country within the framework of a national policy by:

- be aware of the possible choices and get acquainted with methodological tools for assessing the situation

- highlighting major aspects of a municipal heating policy, namely technical, economic, social and institutional, financial, ecologic etc., so as to be able to integrate them in a strategy and to identify issues to be further studied

- presenting the European best experiences (technologies, local and national policies, financing schemes and local implementation) and experts to get acquainted with the different solutions to heating issues

- providing with criteria to choose optimal heating technologies

- introducing to main financial aspects: costs, financial possibilities and schemes within the framework of national policy, European and other international programmes.