Four UN bodies form green partnership across 30 countries

A new partnership has been launched this week by four United Nations (UN) agencies, aiming to support seven years of strengthening and expanding national green economy strategies across 30 countries.

Prospects of reducing environmental risks and poverty, whilst generating new jobs and skills are some of the proposed outcomes of the new partnership.

The Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) is a response to The Future We Want document – an outcome from the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil last year.

The conference called upon UN agencies to support countries interested in further channelling their transition to stronger green economies by accelerating sustainable development and eradicating poverty.

A green economy is “one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities”, states PAGE.

The four UN agencies which make up the new partnership include the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

Although the quartet of organisations have previously undertaken joint green programmes, this is their first collaboration which offers countries a broad range of integrated services and tools that will facilitate national green economy plans.

UNEP said, “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.”

This collective effort by PAGE, which will focus on seven pilot countries, yet to be named, before increasing to a total of 30 by 2020,is expected to generate social awareness, further policy development and implantation as well as sharing knowledge and providing speciality training.

Further reading:

‘Green economy’ achievable, says UN report

UN creates sustainable development group to ‘define the world we want’

Reflections on Rio: was it really that bad?