Stories and Solutions

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

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

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.

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.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and African Environment

Ministers at the Cairo meeting. Photo: UNEP