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