Environment, Climate Change and Green Economy

The European Union supports various initiatives in the area of Green Economy.

You will find below a description of different projects:

• SWITCH Asia: The goal of the SWITCH-Asia programme is to promote economic prosperity and help reduce poverty in Asia by encouraging a sustainable growth with low environmental impact from industries and consumers, in line with international environmental agreements and processes.

More specifically it aims to promote sustainable products, processes, services and consumption patterns in Asia by improving cooperation with European retailers, producer and consumer organizations and the public sector.

You can find the 2014 brochure here.

• SWITCH Med: SwitchMed is an initiative that supports and connects stakeholders to scale-up social and eco innovations in the Mediterranean. The initiative provide tools and connections to supporting partners for social and eco innovations, to achieve productive, circular and sharing economies in the Mediterranean.

SwitchMed is collaboratively coordinated by the EU, United Nations Industrial Development Organisations (UNIDO), United Nations Environment Programme Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP), its Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) and the UNEP-DTIE (Division of Technology, Industry and Economics).

• SWITCH Africa Green: The overall objective of SWITCH Africa Green is to support 6 pilot countries in Africa to achieve sustainable development by engaging in transition towards an inclusive green economy, based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, while generating growth, creating decent jobs and reducing poverty. The objective will be achieved through support to private sector led inclusive green growth.

The specific objective is to support the development of green businesses and eco-entrepreneurship and use of SCP practices by having in place (i) MSMEs and business service providers that are better equipped to seize opportunities for green business development, ii) better informed public and private consumers, and (iii) enabling conditions in form of clear policies, sound regulatory frameworks, incentives structures, tax, other fiscal and market-based instruments influencing key sector(s) in the 6 African countries.

You can find the brochure here.

• Partnership for Action on Green Economy: The Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), is a response to the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), entitled The Future We Want, which recognizes the green economy as a vehicle for sustainable development and poverty eradication.

PAGE aims to support 20 countries over seven years to 2020 in building national green economy strategies that will generate new jobs and skills, promote clean technologies, and reduce environmental risks and poverty. 

More specifically, PAGE will build enabling conditions in participating countries by shifting investment and policies towards the creation of a new generation of assets, such as clean technologies, resource efficient infrastructure, well-functioning ecosystems, green skilled labour and good governance.

You can find the brochure here.

• Poverty Environment Initiative: The Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is a joint global UN-led programme that supports country-led efforts to mainstream poverty-environment linkages into national development planning and processes, from policymaking to budgeting, implementation and monitoring.

The Regional Support Programmes: Offer guidance on strategic planning and information about poverty-environmental mainstreaming issues in the region; Define a set of priority services, including trainings and knowledge management services for countries in the region; Allocate funds for country programmes and provide advisory services, and support for the regional communities of practice;

You can find here the document “Mainstreaming Poverty-Environment Linkages into Development Planning: A Handbook for Practitioners”

Other projects are implemented by the European Union.

The "Greening Economies in the European Union's Eastern Neighbourhood" (EaP GREEN) programme assists six countries of the European Union Eastern Neighbourhood Partnership in progressing faster towards a green economy framework. Decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation should result in higher productivity and competitiveness, better natural capital management, enhanced environmental quality of life, and more resilient economies.

You can find more information about Belarus on the group “Green Economy in Belarus”