Stories and Solutions

Green Economy

The idea that an economy can be transformed and made “green” is an important evolution in global economic thinking. A major challenge, however, is to move these ideas from the fringes into the mainstream. GRID-Arendal’s Green Economy Programme supports UNEP to meet policy, modelling, capacity building and reporting goals for its Green Economy work. This also builds internal capacity for Green Economy across programmes at GRID-Arendal in order to support our clients’ and partners’ needs.

Building Green Economies In Africa In Cairo last March, UNEP Executive Director AchimSteiner, Environment Ministers from South Africa, Egypt, Uganda, and representatives from the African Development Bank presented GRID-Arendal’s report Building Inclusive Green Economies in Africa: Experience and Lessons Learned 2010– 2015 . The synthesis and eight country briefs summarized UNEP’s work to support emerging Green Economy progress across Africa focused on Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa. The report features summaries of good practices and trailblazing policies to illustrate the prospective gains that can be made by investing in a Green Economy. The report included many concrete examples of the benefits of this changed approach to investment. Two examples include renewable energy investment scenarios projected to save up to 100,000 hectares of forest area by 2050 in Burkina Faso. This corresponds to a reduction of about 16 thousand tons of CO2. Billions of tonnes of water will be saved in South Africa through investments in natural resource management. Learning Through Games GRID-Arendal hosted two interns from the Multimedia and Educational Technology department at the University of Agder. While in our office they created two e-learning

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and African Environment Ministers at the Cairo meeting. Photo: UNEP

game-based prototypes for teaching, not just pure entertainment. The first game explores Marine EcosystemServices. The second provides an introduction to UNEP’s forthcoming Green Economy Progress Index, and helps game players consider how they might both create jobs and improve social, environmental, and economic features of the economy. These games are an example of how GRID-Arendal is looking for innovative ways to communicate complex information.

E-learning games are an example of how GRID-Arendal is looking for innovative ways to communicate complex information.

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