This toolkit focuses on inclusive green growth—growth that not only helps green economies, but also helps move towards sustainable development by ensuring environmental sustainability contributes to, or at least does not come at the expense of, social progress. While there is good reason to think that improved environmental performance will benefit the poorest and most vulnerable, green growth policies must be carefully designed to maximise benefits and minimise costs for them, particularly during the transition. There is thus a critical need for policy design that also ensures that skills are upgraded and that jobs are decent, that vulnerable groups are not marginalised or left behind, and that revenues from fiscal reforms are also channeled into broader social protection and health measures.
A number of the tools that will be mobilised to implement inclusive green growth policies are "classic" public management tools, but this document focuses only on the most relevant instruments vis-à-vis green growth in developing countries, as these instruments are widely known and implemented the world over. What this toolkit aims for instead is to provide policy-makers with:
- A framework to help develop inclusive green growth strategies that are well anchored into countries/regions/cities’ broader development goals, and that efficiently and consistently combines the many instruments that are needed in a coherent policy package.
- An overview of some of the key tools that specifically address the challenges raised by making growth green and inclusive. Quick technical descriptions of these tools (or policy instruments, methodologies and approaches) are offered along with suggested sources for further details.
- A brief discussion of knowledge sharing and capacity building challenges and solutions, including the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) developed by a number of international organizations (IOs) to identify knowledge gaps, remediate these and create communities of practice.