The GGKP will host a policy session as part of the 22nd Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). The session will take place on 24 June from 8:30-10:30am at ETH Zurich.
Economic growth has lifted more than 650 million people out of poverty in a mere 20 years, making total poverty elimination a real possibility within our lifetime. However, despite the success in poverty reduction, inequality still persists with large portions of humanity, particularly in developing countries, lacking basic sanitation, access to electricity and clean drinking water. At the same time, given the earth’s limited resources and planetary boundaries, business as usual growth is unsustainable, and threatens future poverty reduction efforts. To make a zero-poverty world a reality, growth in developing countries and emerging economies has to continue, yet this growth needs to be green and inclusive.
Moving away from conventional to green growth pathways is not without challenge and ensuring inclusiveness can make the challenge greater. Or would it? Do we already know how to make growth in some of the poorest regions of the world both green and inclusive? What would it take to make inclusive green growth a reality, particularly in the developing regions of the world? How can existing academic and practitioner research inform robust policy-making to realize inclusive green growth and meet the development aspirations of the masses? What research and evidence base is needed to help policymakers develop and implement these policies?
Organized by the GGKP, the aim of this policy session is to stimulate a debate on such questions amongst the research and practitioner communities, and jointly discuss how research can inform and shape policy-making to deliver inclusive green growth on the ground. The discussion will focus on research gaps for formulating effective green growth policies in developing countries that ensures inclusiveness, and debate solutions to address these gaps.