Programme Cooperation Agreement 2014: Final Report for the Period 01 January 2014 to 01 March 2015

Cebu, Philippines in May 2014. More than 100 policy- makers and practitioners from 17 countries in Asia and the Pacific met to exchange experiences on marine and coastal management and governance. Twenty-five ‘solution providers’ shared their approaches and processes and their successful elements, with an explanation of why and how something worked in the context of their home country. The forum was convened in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and hosted in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Republic of the Philippines. Together with GIZ, GRID-Arendal has developed a highly participatory one week training module on integrating marine and coastal ecosystem services into development planning, which was tested in the week following the Regional Forum. GRID-Arendal trained 25 coastal management practitioners from development, environment and fisheries agencies. After revisions, GRID-Arendal delivered the training to a similar group of practitioners during a workshop called ‘FromEcosystemServices Valuation toAction – Informing Decision Making in the Caribbean’ that brought a wide range of coastal management practitioners from the Caribbean to Bonaire in September. Workshop partners included UNEP, the World Resources Institute and the International Coral Reef Initiative. expected from other UNEP Units and Regional Offices. For example, the Regional Office for Europe approached GRID- Arendal based on a recommendation resulting from the Africa outputs. An additional four outputs are anticipated as the result of this second SSFA. Titles include: Sustainable Consumption and Production policies in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus: Review of Progress and Way Forward ; Potential for Green Jobs: The Waste Recycling Sector in Serbia ; Assessing the Impact of Green Economy Investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Sectoral Study Focused on Energy and Mountain Agriculture ; and Assessing the Impact of Green Economy Investments in Moldova: A Sectoral Study Focused on Energy and Organic Agriculture . Two additional modeling reports (Belarus and Ukraine), their respective translations, and a number of other communication products for Eastern European Green Economy audiences are anticipated for production in 2015. Our work on Green Economy has widespread geographical interest, and GRID-Arendal is rapidly gathering experience with tangible ‘best practice’ examples and country policies from those nations who are actively targeting a Green Economy Transition.

and 60 participants to investigate ways to bridge the language gap between science, the public and decision makers. A paper called Learning to speak ecosystem services, based on participants’ input, will be published in the February/March 2015 issue of Marine Ecosystems and Management. The Blue Solutions project organized a Regional Forum on ‘Solutions for Oceans, Coasts and Human Well-Being in Asia and the Pacific’, which took place on Mactan Island,

Forging New Directions: GRID-Arendal’s new Green Economy Programme

GRID-Arendal’s new Green Economy Programme continues to attract interest and project sponsors to synthesize and deliver findings from ongoing Green Economy National and Regional Reports. In August, GRID-Arendal finalized a Synthesis of UNEP’s Africa Green Economy reports and an accompanying Synthesis for Policy Makers. The reports are titled Building Inclusive Green Economies in Africa: Experiences and Lessons Learned, 2010-2014 . GRID-Arendal also produced country summaries of Green Economy Assessments, Modeling, and Sectoral Reports for the countries of Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Mauritius, and South Africa. Many of the highlighted country examples feature prominently in the Africa Regional report, and are particularly valued for their tangible, quantified, and retrospective look at the lessons learned from countries leading the Green Economy Transition in Africa. In summary, the Africa outputs contribute to a tally of 10 new publication and communication outputs, over and above the outputs GRID-Arendal had forecast for the year.

As word spreads about GRID-Arendal’s Green Economy capacity, additional interest and project instigation is

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