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11-13 April 2018, Georgetown, Guyana - As one of the newest countries to join the Partnership, PAGE and Guyana are exploring potential avenues for partnership and national support. A major tool that PAGE provides to partner countries is a Green Jobs Assessment; an economy-wide analysis that uncovers the sectors and gaps with greatest potential for employment and fair work, while protecting the environment. The Preparatory mission for implementation of PAGE's Green Jobs Assessment Methodology took place in Georgetown, Guyana 11-13 April 2018

The Guyanese government has fully embraced the importance of understanding the intersecting priorities of labour and the environment, concluding that the future Green Jobs Assessment model would become an integrated part of the implementation of its Green State Development Strategy. The Green Jobs Assessment model will provide the government with tools for impact assessment of the alternative scenarios of conventional and green jobs as well as on other economic, social and environmental outcomes.

Within the next three years, the Guyanese Green State Development Strategy will allow the government to better plan budgets for the short to medium term, and to model important macroeconomic structural changes and its impacts on social and employment outcomes. The government of Guyana will use the International Labour Organization's Just Transition Guidlines as a framework document for their development strategy.

March 2018, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia - 

What do you think is the most popular course among architecture students at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST)? It’s a course on green buildings.

“Even former students are asking us if they can take the course,” says B. Munkhbayar, a Senior Lecturer at MUST.

The interest in the course reflects a broader shift in the building sector in Mongolia where energy efficient buildings are more and more in demand.

“Currently, the manufacturing and construction sectors consume 60 percent of total electricity and 24 percent of the heat. The building heat loss is about 30 percent – we want to change this,” says L. Batjargal, Director of Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Construction and Urban Development (MCUD).

The National Green Development Policy sets a target for reducing heat loss through buildings by 20 percent by 2020 and by 40 percent by 2030. To achieve this, MCUD is working on a green building code and rating system and is revamping its construction sector policy, with support by PAGE, the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) and a Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) project.

Constant Van Aerschot, who advises the Government on the new construction sector policy on behalf of PAGE highlights: “It is important to not only think about individual buildings but also about energy supply and urban planning as a whole.”

Arab Hoballah, Team Leader, SWITCH-Asia SCP Facility adds: “The goal needs to be sustainable housing and resource efficient cities, considering relevant consumption and production patterns, if we want to have a transformative impact.”

A new morning for Mongolian cities? The Government is promoting more resource-efficient and inclusive urban development.

Back to B. Munkhbayar and the education sector. The green building course offered by MUST is not the only green-economy related course run by Mongolian universities.

With support from PAGE, the National University of Mongolia (NUM), the Mongolian University of Life Sciences (MULS) and the University of Finance and Economics (UFE) are developing a new undergraduate course on green economy and macro-economic modelling, to be launched in 2018. A new course on sustainable finance is planned to be piloted next year, in partnership with the Mongolian Sustainable Finance Association (MSFA), IFC and PAGE.

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Mongolian universities are joining forces to green their operations and educational offer.

“When I first came to Mongolia in 2015, the higher education sector was not yet much involved in the green and sustainable development agenda. There were a few initiatives but I think the momentum created over the past two to three years is quite remarkable,” says Amrei Horstbrink, a Green Development Specialist at the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

Beyond the launch of new courses, universities are joining forces to green their campuses and are planning to work on a submission to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Furthermore, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports is focusing the new higher education policy on sustainable development to encourage universities to green their teaching and operations. S. Munkhbat, Adviser to the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports points out: “We are aiming to increase investments into higher education to contribute to a shift towards sustainable development”.

If university students are becoming leaders in society they need to fully integrate the concept of sustainable development. And this is not just as a matter of principle, as Cristina Martinez from the International Labor Organization (ILO) highlights: “We estimate that by 2030, 14 million jobs will be created in climate change mitigation in Asia – most of them for high skilled labor, i.e. both university and vocational education graduates.”

By greening their educational offer, the Mongolian universities are not only preparing their students to be better citizens but also to be competitive in a changing labor market.

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PAGE started its engagement in Mongolia in 2013, supporting the development of the National Green Development Policy which was approved by Parliament in 2014. Over the past four and a half years, PAGE has supported Mongolia in advancing its green development agenda with evidence-based policy appraisal using system dynamics modelling, analysis of different options for implementation of the NGDP, and support for policy development and reform in specific sectors and thematic areas, such as green construction, sustainable public procurement, green economy learning, sustainable finance, waste management and trade. In the week of 12 March 2018, a series of 10 meetings and workshops took place to advance technical work under the different thematic workstreams and to discuss with national and international partners how to ensure sustainability of the work supported by PAGE.

15 March 2018, Geneva, Switzerland – Many governments face the triple challenge of reducing environmental risks, while fostering economic growth and reducing poverty. Green fiscal reform (GFR) as a policy approach can improve fiscal consolidation, spur innovation, and help identify smarter ways for government taxation and spending.

By setting appropriate economic incentives and price signals, green fiscal policies can help shift consumption patterns and drive private investments in human, natural, social and clean-produced capital. For example, fossil fuel subsidies amount globally to 548 billion USD (IEA, 2013) and their reduction would unlock funding for investments in clean industries, renewable energy, and poverty reduction.

To meet the learning needs and build capacities of national stakeholders, Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) has developed this e-learning course on green fiscal reform. The interactive and practice-oriented course seeks to provide interested participants from government, business, civil society and academia with an introduction to various approaches and policy instruments for reforming government spending and revenue generation with the goal of supporting the transition to a green economy. The course will take place from 9 April to 1 June 2018.

At the end of the course, participants are given the opportunity to apply their newly acquired knowledge to a real-life situation in a specific country, region or sector by developing an action plan. The action plans are peer-reviewed by participants, as well as by the course moderator. While preparing a case study, participants identify a concrete problem context and relevant issues and define appropriate measures, resources and means of implementation.

A limited number of fellowships are available for eligible candidates. The application process and eligibility criteria are outlined in this note. The fellowship application deadline is 26 March 2018.

To register, please visit the course catalogue or check the course flyer.

For more information, please contact: page@unitar.org

1-3 August 2018, Lima, Peru - In collaboration with the Ministry of Production of Peru (PRODUCE) and the EU-funded project “Inclusive Green Economy Policy Making for SDGs: from Implementation to Evaluation”, Universidad del Pacífico (CIUP) and the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) held a three day capacity building event on the Integrated Green Economy Modelling (IGEM) Tool.

Building on a previous workshop where the IGEM framework was presented to Peruvian government officials and other stakeholders in 2017, the three-day event marked the first phase of the implementation of the IGEM tool in Peru. The training process, aimed at public officials and members of academia, intends to enable the evaluation of green policies in several sectors, including the manufacturing sector, of particular relevance in the context of the greening of Peru’s economic structure.

During the opening of the workshop, Philippe Vanhuynegem, Director of the ILO Office for Andean Countries, acknowledged that Peru has successfully taken on the task of promoting green growth. "In this process, the United Nations has been contributing to the generation of knowledge to incorporate the concept of green inclusive economy in policies and national plans”, he recalled. "Now PAGE is in a phase of consolidation and we’re transferring knowledge, tools and capabilities developed to ensure the sustainability of its actions".

The Integrated Green Economy Modelling Tool (IGEM) will allow Peru to use a range of economic, social and environmental indicators to project the impacts of potential green policy measures and to analyse the effects of existing policies. "Having this information in a timely manner is essential for policy decisions and planning", he added.

Policies evaluated with this tool should help meet the national objectives of sustainable development, improve competitiveness, promote economic growth, diversify the economy and generate green jobs. In this sense, Congressman Pedro Olaechea insisted on the need to use the information generated to "work in the creation of solid markets and incentives that motivate entrepreneurs to invest in green jobs and businesses and, at the end of the day, contribute to reduce informality".

The training also served to refine the process of implementation, monitoring and reporting of some of the Sustainable Development Goals to which the country has committed. "Only by working together can we achieve [the 2030 Agenda]", said Stefan Pauwels, Head of the European Union Cooperation Section in Peru. "The green economy and the circular economy are tools that allow progress in that direction", he insisted.

Adapted from story first published on ilo.org, August 2 2018. Read the original here (in Spanish)

27 February 2018, Erdenet, Mongolia - For decades the only source of lighting at the regional public hospital in Mongolia’s Orkhon province came from high-energy inefficient bulbs that did not meet health and safety standards.

“I was hospitalized twice last year and stayed in the rehabilitation section of the hospital. When I first stayed the lighting was bad, some bulbs and lights were not working properly and those working bulbs did not have sufficient lights. It was always dark,” said S. Baljinnyam, an elderly patient.

The hospital in Erdenet, Orkhon’s capital city, is solely dependent on the province’s budget which usually falls short for routine maintenance, as is the case for many of Mongolia’s hospitals.  But thanks to a small project grant awarded by the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) following a tender competition in 2017, the hospital was able to install LED lights in some areas and slash its annual energy costs, funded by the province, by an estimated 55 per cent. The diagnostic and medical center selected Erdenet-based And Energy LCC, the only Mongolian producer of LED lighting, to replace the old light bulbs, thereby fostering local green jobs.

“With LED lighting we have improved our energy efficiency, improved our cleaning, and provided a better and safer environment for our patients and staff,” said hospital director, B. Batsukh.

 On 22 February 2018 the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), together with the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) of the Graduate Institute hosted the launch of three major publications that will guide PAGE’s action on green industrial policy. The event featured several experts who drafted portions of these publications. Oana Ichim, PhD Candidate in International Law at the Graduate Insitute of Geneva interviewed Professor Jorge E. Viñuales, Harold Samuel Professor of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge and Adjunct Professor at the Institute, who authored one of the three publications: “Green Industrial Policy and Trade: A Tool-Box”. This interview was originally published on the website of the Graduate Institute. We thank the Graduate Institute for the permission to repost this article.

What is the added value of a tool-box of trade-related policy options for the use of green industrial policy instruments?

International trade is an amplifier of the positive but also the negative effects that economic activity can have on social and economic development. The international trade architecture is a rule-based system, which was designed in its essence in the late 1940s, when environmental protection was in the minds of very few people and totally outside of the radar of institution designers. Despite its substantial revision in the early 1990s, when the WTO was established, the international trade architecture does not sit comfortably with the current move towards the development of green industrial policy, in its many forms. 

The purpose of Green Industrial Policy and Trade: A Tool-Box is to provide an overview of the main families of trade-related green industrial policy tools currently in use, namely border measures, support schemes, standards, sustainable public procurement and manufacturing, environmental clauses in trade agreements, and employment-related schemes, as well as to discuss their relations with the international trade architecture. It is intended as a policy-relevant but not a policy-prescriptive tool-box, and it emphasises, following SDG 17, that trade is an instrument to pursue sustainable development, and not a goal in and of itself. The emphasis of the report is on the many synergies between trade-related policies and sustainable development.

Could you elaborate on the main challenges identified and if possible, on the ways in which relevant stakeholders could further engage with green industrial policy?

There are many challenges involved. The first is, of course, to provide a sufficient basis for states and other stakeholders to assess whether sustainability transitions are indeed taking place. If they understand that this is happening and that there is likely no way back, then they will consider how to play within the new playground, often called an inclusive green economy. 

The second is how to play or, in other words, what strategies to adopt to be at the same time competitive as well as socially and environmentally prosperous. The three reports presented by PAGE cover different areas. One provides a wide-ranging analysis of the theoretical foundations of green industrial policy and its main concepts and tools. The other provides guidance on how to organise a green industrial policy strategy at the domestic level, with a focus on the process. The tool-box I developed is an extension of these two other instruments and focuses, specifically, on the tools relevant to trade as an amplifier. It provides a menu for each state to choose and experiment and, eventually, to encourage the role of trade as an amplifier of positive rather than negative effects. 

A third challenge is, as I mentioned earlier, that green industrial policies do not sit comfortably with international trade rules. At present, one can observe three main scenarios in the practice of states: green industrial policies that are unlawful under trade (and perhaps also investment) law and that are being challenged before the relevant fora; green industrial policies that are likely unlawful but that are not being challenged; and green industrial policies that are lawful. The tool-box discusses all three, although it does not use this analytical cartography as its backbone. But it was very important in developing the tool-box to show what’s happening in reality rather than in an idealised world. This tension is challenging because, as I said above, trade and investment (and their law) are only instruments to pursue sustainable development, and not goals in and of themselves. I started to write about these issues 10 years ago and I am happy to see that the mindset is finally starting to change and these issues are becoming mainstream, beyond pro forma acknowledgments and calls for action.

To find out more about PAGE's work on Green Industrial Policy, please click here.
To find out more about the launch of PAGE's trilogy of Green Industrial Policy resources, please click here.
To find out more about the Green Industrial Policy and Trade: A Tool Box, please click here.

21 February 2018, Port Louis, Mauritius - Mauritius, a small island nation especially vulnerable to climate change, is planning to create a Green Bonds Market with the help of PAGE – the Partnership for Action on the Green Economy.

Green bonds are among the financing options available to private firms and public entities seeking investment opportunities that bring positive environment and climate benefits, in addition to rates of return.  Green bond financing includes projects that focus on renewable energy, waste management, pollution prevention, conservation and environmentally-friendly transport.

The Stock Exchange together with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and PAGE, organised an information session in February on green bonds for key stakeholders. With presentations from experts in the field, around 60 potential issuers, verifiers and investors are now showing interest in the initiative. They are expected to take part in an in-depth green bonds training programme in May designed by PAGE and UN Environment’s Finance Initiative in partnership with the Frankfurt School - UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, the Climate Bonds Initiative and the Center for International Climate Research (Cicero).

“The creation of an economic system favouring the emission of green bonds is in line with our policy to integrate an environmental dimension into the services already offered by the Mauritian Stock Exchange,” said Sunil Benimadhu, the Exchange’s Chief Executive. 

In 2015, the stock exchange launched the SEM Sustainability Index, which identifies companies based on strong sustainability practices using a set of internationally aligned and locally relevant economic, environmental, social and governance criteria. 

The Climate Bond Initiative estimates that the total amount of green bonds issued globally will rise to $250 billion this year, compared to $156.7 billion in 2017.

INTRODUCTION

24 January 2018, Accra, Ghana - The National Dialogue on Decent Work and “Just Transition” to a Sustainable Economy and Society for all was organized by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relation in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The two Ministries received technical and financial support from PAGE. The discussion centred on the “The Roles of Tripartite Constituents in Sustainable Development”.

The event, which took place at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel on Wednesday, 24th January 2018, brought together stakeholders from all sectors of the national economy. These included government agencies, trade unions, the Ghana Employers’ Association, academia, development partners and civil society organizations.

   
BRIEF BACKGROUND
The Paris Agreement requires individual countries to implement initiatives that mitigate the impacts of climate. In view of this and other frameworks, Ghana has developed its Nationally Determined Contributions and 31 prioritized programmes and projects. However, the mitigation and adaption actions themselves present a host of negative impacts, particularly on work. In order to address the issues, the International Labour Organization has developed non-binding Policy Guidelines for countries aspiring to green their economies.

   
PURPOSE OF THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE
The purpose of the dialogue was to provide a platform to actors at the national level to discuss possible options for synchronizing climate change and labour/ decent job creation policies within the context of the “Just Transition” concept.

ISSUES AT THE TECHNICAL SESSION
The following issues and concerns emerged at the plenary during the technical presentations and discussion:

• The impacts of climate change and the response measures on jobs and work are inevitable.
• There are complexities in adjusting to the “Just Transition” concept in the labour market.
• Green job skills, training and education programmes are non-existing or do not enable the labour force take advantage of  opportunities.
• Workers in the informal economy and energy are the most vulnerable. 
• There is inadequate collaboration between government agencies in implementing of the components of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The impact of the NDCs on existing and future jobs has not been fully and rigorously evaluated.
• There is the need for alternative measures to control the adverse effects of the structural changes required for ‘Just Transition’ to be successful in Ghana.