UNEP Regional Workshop on “Inclusive Green Economies for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development in Africa: From Inspiration to Action”

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Cairo, Egypt, 2 March 2015 – African countries gathered to discuss and share experiences and lessons learned in bringing a green economy focus into their medium and long-term development plans during a two-day regional workshop held in Cairo, Egypt, organized by UNEP jointly with UNECA and the African Development Bank, with the support of European Union (EU).

From 28 February to 1 March, ministers from African countries and key policy makers explored the theme ‘Inclusive Green Economies for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development in Africa: From Inspiration to Action’, with the aim to distil the valuable lessons learned both from countries’ endeavours to move towards an inclusive green economy and from entrepreneurs to establish and scale up their social and environmental enterprises. The meeting also sketched out next steps for actions with a goal to achieve poverty eradication and sustainable development in Africa. Additionally, participants had the opportunity to discuss how more coordinated support, including financing, to implement these strategies and action plans can be mobilized and secured.  

Some of the issues tackled included: assessing where Africa, as a region, stands in terms of its progress towards green economy; distilling and sharing good practices and valuable experiences of implementing green economy policy and strategies at the country level; promoting social and environmental entrepreneurship; enhancing countries’ capacities to incorporate inclusive green economy as a central frame of reference in national development planning.

The meeting was a pre-session to the 15th Session of AMCEN, the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment.

Background
Africa has experienced some of the highest rates of economic growth seen around the world, with an average annual growth rate of 5.3 per cent between 2001 and 2009. Despite these remarkable rates of economic growth, Africa still faces challenges of persistent poverty, income inequalities and low levels of human development and skills building.  These challenges are compounded by ecosystem degradation, climate change and external shocks and economic disruption, which disproportionately impact the poor and most vulnerable.

During  the run up to Rio+20, African countries have recognised that building an inclusive green economy can deliver more equitable, more sustainable development, and  this has continued after the conference to today. Indeed, African finance ministers in Abuja earlier last year endorsed green economy and emphasised “the huge potential that the inclusive green economy presents for accelerating and sustaining Africa’s industrialisation and overall structural transformation.”

However, such a path to an inclusive green economy faces considerable challenges, and will play out differently in each country according to its national policy agenda and development goals.  Overcoming these challenges will require persistence and a concerted effort by national and international development partners, building on the valuable lessons learned across the continent and experiences gained in implementing green economy policies over the past few years. 

Recognizing this, African Ministers of Finance and Economic planning “invited multilateral agencies, bilateral partners, foundations, research institutions and universities to work with the African Union Commission, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide technical assistance and financial resources to enable member states to usher in a favourable business environment that will leverage technological opportunities, enable economic growth through the greening of key productive sectors to generate new jobs, promote entrepreneurial development, and enhance the quality of life of African people”.

Over the last few years, some key organizations including the African Development Bank and UNECA have enhanced their support on green economy to African countries.  In particular, UNEP, with the support of the European Union EU and other partners, has been active in reaching out and providing analytical and policy support to leading countries in Africa as part of the Green Economy Initiative, and promoting social and environmental entrepreneurship in Africa since 2010. From Kenya to South Africa, Sierra Leone to Mozambique, UNEP together with other partners such as the UN ECA and AfDB have been providing advisory services to governments on developing green economy strategies and policies.  Meanwhile other initiatives such as Sustainability Education and Economic Development (SEED) have been working alongside enterprises to encourage social and environmental entrepreneurship.

Structure of workshop
The meeting was structured around the following four issues with cross-cutting themes that are most pertinent and pressing in Africa, namely, poverty, equity and jobs within the overall framework of sustainable development:

1. Opportunities and challenges for inclusive green economy in Africa;

2. Country experiences on framing inclusive green economy in national development policies and strategies and promoting social and environmental entrepreneurship;

3. Inclusive green economy’s contribution to setting and achieving national goals and targets in the long-term development plans to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development;

4. Key decisions and outcomes required at AMCEN to facilitate countries’ efforts to build an inclusive green economy.

The meeting was split into two segments: a half day roundtable followed by one and a half day technical workshop:

The half-day roundtable aimed at setting the scene by sketching out the overarching pictures at the regional level on where Africa is heading in terms of its green economy trajectory, highlighting some of the major regional initiatives and programmes that are being spearheaded by the regional institutions to promote an inclusive green economy including the African Green Economy Partnership (AGEP).

The one and a half day technical workshop started with key achievements on green economy in various countries by presenting the outcomes of the project supported by the EU namely "Green Economy and Social and Environmental Entrepreneurship in Africa". This was followed by a way forward session exploring the issues of (i) framing national development plans in the context of an inclusive green economy; (ii) financing green economy transformation (i.e. national green funds, sovereign wealth fund) through fiscal reforms; (iii) supporting countries to set and achieve national targets and goals to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development as well as to promote green and social entrepreneurship at the local level; and (iv) identifying what decisions AMCEN needs to take to support countries’ efforts to build an inclusive green economy.

Click here to download the agenda of the workshop.