Kanchanaburi, Thailand 31 August - 5 September 2009 - ASEAN ToT Green Growth Capacity Development Seminar

Rapid economic growth of the countries in the region is adding increasing ecological pressure on the Asia and Pacific’s limited ecological carrying capacity. However, the region has to continue its economic growth, which is necessary to reduce poverty of the 2/3rd of world poor living in the region, but since the region can not continue to carry such resource intensive growth, a more environmentally friendly approach to growth is crucial. This rapid growth is already contributing to the increase of developing countries’ contributions to the net global CO2 emissions. In addition to that, developing countries in the region need to cope with increasing costs of regeneration of natural resources and climate change impacts and find innovative means to maximize the benefits from such investment.

In response to this necessity, the countries of Asia and the Pacific have adopted Green Growth or environmentally sustainable economic growth for the improved well-being of all during the Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development (MCED) held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in March 2005. The Green Growth approach is a viable strategy for achieving sustainable development in the region.

Based on the declaration of the MECD and the mandate of ESCAP, ESCAP has made an effort to promote activities of the Seoul Initiative on Green Growth, which include policy analysis and dialogue, design of frameworks, and development of strategies to pursue ecologically efficient economic growth in the region. The Governments of Asia and the Pacific requested the secretariat to provide capacity building activities in support of developing countries, landlocked countries and countries with economies in transition. At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia in December 2007, which culminated with the adoption of the Bali Action Plan, UNESCAP emerged as the regional hub development of the post-2012 framework on climate change for the region embedding the green growth approach.

As response, ESCAP is initiating a regional capacity building programme to enhance knowledge and skills of policy and decision maker to develop and apply of important policy measures and tools for enhancing the environmental suitability of economic growth, based on sound normative, analytical and research work in several areas: -- promotion of green tax and budget reform; -- development of sustainable infrastructure, including application of Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA); -- promotion of sustainable consumption, including demand side management; “Greening” of the market and promotion of green business; development of Eco-efficiency Indicators (EEI); -- development of methodologies, policy tools, innovative mechanisms and tools for climate change action; and – Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES).

The project will focus on the following ASEAN member states: Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar as target countries.

To meet the sustainable development policy making needs ESCAP in partnership with the Regional Helpdesk on SCP in Asia and the Pacific and with generous support from the UK Government has prepared a unique training package for Green Growth for ASEAN Government Officials. Building on the success of last months training, ESCAP has taken steps to include a session on policy tools aimed at fostering low-carbon development.

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