News

PAGE Partner Countries, South Africa and Argentina, joined the GGKP-led webinar  Green Jobs and a Just Transition: Country Perspectives  on 18 November to present their respective experiences, best practices and national strategies for overcoming challenges in working towards just and green development.

Offering particular insights on green economic recovery potential, this is the third edition of a five-part GGKP webinar series, under the project  Green Economy Transformation: Synergies between Low-carbon Pathways and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI), in cooperation with PAGE running from 2018 to 2021. 

With representation from Mactavish Makwarela, Director of Mitigation, South Africa's Department of Climate, Change, Air Quality and Sustainable Development and Rodrigo Rodriguez Tornquist, Secretary of Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Innovation, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, Argentina, the webinar south to address topics such as: the importance of green jobs in national recovery strategies; what sectors are leading in green jobs creation; and how governments can support workers during a green transition. 

The first webinar in the series, We're Here to Help: Free policy advisory services for a greener economy (May 2019), introduced free-of-charge advisory services for policymakers, policy advisors, and supporting institutions to aid the transition to an inclusive green economy. 

The second webinar, Measuring What Matters: A new methodology for collecting and reporting data on fossil fuel subsidies (October 2019), presented a methodology for measuring fossil fuel subsidies in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and providing practical guidance to governments for collecting and reporting data on fossil fuel subsidies. 

Referencing the latest available data, all PAGE countries (where data is available) will see an increase in unemployment rates compared to 2019. And in more detail, the highest unemployment rates are projected to be in South Africa (36.99%), Barbados (14.85%), Brazil (13.37%), Morocco (12.50%), and Peru (12.47%).

Current projections show the greatest percentage increase in unemployment are expected to be in Mauritius — there, the unemployment rate is likely to increase from 6.70% in 2019 to 21% in 2020, resulting in a 213.43% increase in the unemployment rate. 

Among other PAGE countries, Peru (88%), Kazakhstan (62.77%), Indonesia (51.52%), Barbados (43.41%) and South Africa (28.88%) will also see high jumps in unemployment.  

X

Thanks to a strong partnership and support from the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany, PAGE is announcing the first wave of green recovery funds for five partner countries — Senegal, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil (Mato Grosso) and Thailand. With funding support first announced in July at the High Level Political Forum, PAGE has since engaged across its five UN agencies along with UN Resident Coordinators and government ministries to develop country-specific proposals for additional support — with all proposals targeting actions that will fuel green and inclusive recoveries from the impacts of COVID-19. Thanks to this coordinated effort, these targeted green recovery funds will be disbursed by the end of the year.  

After conducting a rapid Needs Assessment Survey and tracking impacts in a Data Observatory of its 20 partner countries, PAGE has been able to assist in identifying areas where support for green recovery would be most impactful.   

Through wide engagement on the country-level, this additional PAGE support mechanism will be aiding efforts led by and embedded within each country context — being both demand-driven and tactical for maximum effect. With this, PAGE is answering the call to be a catalyst for green recovery at the global level: named within “A UN framework for the immediate socio-economic response to COVID-19” to support the development of green stimulus packages (p 18).  

PAGE and Cambridge Econometrics (CE) have partnered to conduct a modeling exercise analyzing and comparing the potential immediate to long-term impacts of varying recovery scenarios. Focusing on multisectoral impacts, employment, resource-efficiency and nature, the analysis will specifically compare brown recovery scenarios and Inclusive Green Economy recovery scenarios - providing global guidance and messaging, supporting a future that would reverse current unsustainable practices.

The approach is two-fold: there will be research to provide global estimates, which can give broader messages regarding COVID-19 recovery scenarios, as well as research which focuses on two PAGE countries, to analyze spending plans and multisectoral impacts in detail, eventually providing targeted policy advice. 

CE will use its own global assessment model, E3ME, which will also receive inputs on the biodiversity components of the modelling scenarios, which will be provided by UNEP-WCMC.     

The E3ME model covers world GDP, CO2, energy, jobs and trade for around 40 industries in each country. Aggregating all countries and industries, E3ME will assess global social, economic and environmental outcomes of green vs brown recovery spending. With the bottom-up research, PAGE and CE plan to engage national stakeholders at the outset, building the national model in unison. Through this engagement on the national level, the goal is to provide a truly evidence-based analysis of alternative policies to reach inclusive green economy objectives, such as job gains, GDP and CO2 reductions. The input and output indicators will be defined by the respective government. 

This project is currently ongoing and scheduled for completion in December 2020 with the findings being reported in early 2021. For more information, please contact Marek Harsdorff, harsdorff@ilo.org or Ade Odegbile, adebiyi.odegbile@un.org.