Locations
Photo: UNDP Moldova
In the home of Elena Smîntînă’s family, in the village of Prepelița, Sîngerei district, in northern Moldova, the fire in the stove never goes out during cold days. “It’s a necessity, not a luxury,” says Elena as she adds a few logs to the stove that heats the two main rooms of the house — the heart of family life during the winter months. These two rooms are where everything happens: homework, guitar or dance practice, and bedtime. The family also used coal, but their supply ran out toward spring.
With six children — five of whom go to school or kindergarten, and one newborn — staying warm is a matter of responsibility and care. The parents do their best to prepare in advance, stocking up on supplies to ensure comfort and health for their little ones, especially during the coldest months of the year.
The energy compensation they received this winter season helped ease this burden. Elena says they felt this support as a sign of care from the state and its partners — support that proved vital for many households like theirs to get through the winter safely.
“We received between 800 and 1,000 lei (about 50 euros) per month. That money really helped us during the winter. Without these compensations, I don’t know how we would have managed. It would have definitely been harder, especially since my husband has less work when it’s cold. The only steady income we have during this period is the 1,000 lei monthly allowance for Luca, our youngest, which we use to pay for the electricity, water, internet, and kindergarten,” explains Elena. The aid they received allowed them to buy wood and coal for heating. For their family, this support means not only warmth but also hope for a more secure future for their children.
Elena’s husband, Andrei, works as a day laborer in construction, whenever and wherever he can find work — but his income is not stable. Still, on his days off, he invests his time and savings into finishing their house. Though they live in it, the house is still not fully completed.
More than 12 years ago, the couple made the decision to return home from Italy, where they had worked for six and seven years respectively, and where their first two children were born. With the savings they brought back, they began building their home — and step by step, they continue to work on it together. “We were lucky to have saved that money and to have spent it on building our home,” says Elena. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve anything later on.”
Elena and Andrei’s family is one of over 720,000 households that received energy compensation during the cold season from November 2024 to March 2025. The average compensation amount was approximately 778 lei, with the most energy-vulnerable families receiving nearly double that amount. The Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund (EVRF) is operating its third consecutive cold season. This season, the compensations for heating were made possible with the support of Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, which together donated 1.15 billion lei. The remaining funds were allocated from public funding by the Government of Moldova.
During the 2024–2025 cold season, UNDP and the Government of Italy supported the operationalization of the Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund’s dedicated call center, which responded to over 136,000 phone calls and approx. 32,000 emails from citizens. They also contributed to the modernization of the IT system that powers EVRF — the largest Governmental assistance programme in Moldova.
