Tunis — The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group is undertaking a study to produce an "Africa Green Growth Strategy".
The Bank will present the draft Strategy at regional stakeholders' workshops in August and September 2010. A pilot Action Plan will then be established. It will include about five strategic pilot projects that focus on technology transfer of renewable energies as well as the need to ensure an appropriate political, institutional and regulatory framework that will guarantee the sustainability of the green economy measures.
The overall objective of the Green Growth Strategy, which will be similar to the one produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is to achieve sustainable and equitable global economic growth and environment protection.
Specifically, the objectives of the AfDB Green Growth Strategy for Africa are:
To establish a framework context for the Bank to foster innovation and green growth in Africa.
To identify needs, potential and pilot projects/best practices as well as constraints and barriers for Green Growth promotion in Africa.
To propose an appropriate Green Growth strategy and instruments by considering the importance of an appropriate legal, institutional and regulatory framework in the implementation of a Green Growth strategy for Africa.
Speaking on the prospective Green Growth strategy, the Bank's Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Gender Unit Head, Anthony Nyong, said the institution needed to develop a short-term Action Plan and identify strategic pilot projects which can showcase its success in going green.
"Sustainability thinking is the need of the hour and more important than ever, a collective response of everyone, particularly the international community to rapid climate change is an imperative requirement", Mr Nyong emphasized.
Green Growth is an economic growth concept and a new sustainable development paradigm. It emphasizes economic assets of natural resources, the potential multiple benefits of green industries as well as the need for policy mixes in environmental policy which include or which make more use of economic instruments. Green Growth focuses on the quality of growth by promoting eco-efficiency. By moving beyond the three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental development), Green Growth also pursues a goal of quality of life and well-being for all thereby enhancing the Bank's poverty reduction mandate.
A Green Growth strategy for Africa would complement Bank's work in supporting the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009 (COP15) in its Regional Member Countries (RMCs) through support for the preparation of National Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs).
The Green Growth Strategy would enable RMC's to generate first successful results to report on the NAMA process. This will promote the Bank's involvement in designing a green growth strategy in view of the tremendous strategic challenges and the diverse interests of the various international, regional and country stakeholders.
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Ernest Achonu
