Dr Claudine Uwera, Minister of Finance, who did her PhD on Environmental Economics at University Gothenburg, took part in the programme 2019-2020 as advisor sharing her views and experiences on Inclusive Green economy work in Rwanda.
An inclusive green economy is an economic development that improves human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. During the last year, the Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development (GMV) at Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg, has implemented a capacity building programme on inclusive green economy in East Africa. In competition with all Swedish universities, GMV was this week awarded new funding of 2 MSEK from the Swedish Institute for implementing a developed version of the programme.
- We are pleased to receive these funds that enable us to continue our work to strengthen inclusive green economy work in the region and contribute to implementing the global goals for sustainable development, says Anders Ekbom, who together with Emelie César, is co-director of the programme.
The programme implemented during 2019-2020 has included fifteen senior government civil servants from Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda, and targeted sectors critical for a transformation towards an inclusive green economy in the selected countries. The aim was to strengthen their capacity for conversion to an inclusive green economy through increased knowledge and application of economic instruments, organisational change, and building national systems for green economy applications in practice.
The participants implemented various green economy change projects, in which they practically used green economy approaches and analytical tools in their respective organisations. For example, one of the projects was about initiating a work to introduce a carbon dioxide tax in Ethiopia.
– Building capacity on inclusive green economy is an important and necessary step towards sustainable development. It contains powerful tools and approaches that can promote this transformation. However, these tools are largely unused and capacity is still low in the programme countries; this programme makes a small but important contribution to increase it, says Anders Ekbom.
In the programme, GMV collaborated with researchers from University of Gothenburg and the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD), and partners like Global Green Growth Institute in Rwanda, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Tax Authority, and universities and green economy practitioners in the East Africa region.
The next programme will run from June 2020 to June 2021.
- With this new programme we hope to continue to strengthen our collaboration with these partners and government agencies in the region, and further contribute to strengthen capacity and practical work on inclusive green economy in these countries, says Emelie César.
Learn more on inclusive green economy and access country reports and participant voices from the programme, that ended in March 2020: gmv.chalmers.gu.se/english/collaborations-and-projects/inclusive-green-economy-in-practice