Today’s development model promotes the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences for the environment or the impact that the quality of the environment has on people’s lives and livelihoods. Without a shift in current consumption and production patterns, a sustainable model of development is out of reach. The 1992 Earth Summit acknowledged the need to marry growth and environmental sustainability, but more than 20 years later the world still lacks concrete goals, commitments, benchmarks of progress and frameworks to secure benefits across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The global South is emerging as a green growth laboratory, with innovation and creativity to tackle these concerns. This article analyses these efforts in the context of public policy, and shows that both positive and negative patterns in practice and policy are emerging, which should be considered as broader global green growth efforts are further consolidated and the post- 2015 development agenda is being defined.
This joint Poverty-Environment Partnership paper aims to stimulate a dialogue among developing country policymakers, development partners and other stakeholders on how best to support country-led efforts to build inclusive green economies. Through a shared commitment to putting into place the building blocks of a green economy for all, real and lasting progress can be made towards overcoming poverty and inequality and achieving sustainable human development.
This policy brief draws the attention of policy-makers and social partners in least developed countries to the role of skills development in facilitating the building of greener economies, as a way to achieve sustainable development and poverty eradication. It has been written at the request of ILO constituents from LDCs, where environmental deterioration and the consequences of climate change are among the major challenges of the twenty-first century. While change is a challenge, it also offers economic and employment opportunities. The brief arises out of the Green Jobs Initiative, a partnership between the ILO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the International Organization of Employers (IOE). It draws on research applied in policy design and numerous case studies of country experiences and good practices.
The purpose of this paper is to assess evidence of ‘triple wins’ on the ground, and the feasibility of triple wins that do not generate negative impacts. It describes the theoretical linkages that exist between adaptation, mitigation and development, as well as the trade-offs and synergies that might exist between them. Using four developing country studies, this working paper makes a simple assessment of the extent of climate compatible development policy in practice through the lens of ‘no-regrets’, ‘low regrets’ and ‘with regrets’ decision making. The lack of evidence of either policy or practice of triple wins significantly limits the capacity of donors to identify, monitor or evaluate ‘triple wins at this point in time. It is recommended that a more strategic assessment of the distributional and financial implications of 'triple wins' policies.
The report highlights the importance of building compact, more efficient cities. It proposes creating a sustainable national urban system across the country and makes recommendations to support the government’s five-year Growth and Transformation Plan.
In the face of an increasing urban population, Ethiopia can learn from the experience of other developing countries. In some developing countries too much growth was concentrated in rapidly expanding capital cities. This meant that they were later unable to keep up with their growth, having to tackle health-related problems caused by pollution and divert scarce resources to provide services such as basic housing and sanitation to a sprawling urban population.