Cartagena, 6 November 2014 - Based on the success of the first global academy in October 2014, the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) organized its first Green Economy Regional Forum for Latin America in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, from 2-6 November 2015. The aim of the regional forum was to support the analysis, diffusion and exchange of knowledge and experiences related to policies and national and sectoral strategies to promote a transition towards green and inclusive economies in the region. The training was aimed at stakeholders from government, labor unions, industry groups, civil society, cooperatives, private sector, and research and academic institutions. Some of the countries present at the forum included Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Paraguay.
Trade was featured as an important element in the week’s activities. A three hour parallel session on “Trade and Green Economy: Opportunities, Challenges and Tendencies” featured 25 participants. The session started with a group activity that sought to define the real scope of trade, its importance for countries in the region, and the impacts it can have on social and environmental sustainability. Regardless of their broad and diverse backgrounds, participants readily identified ways in which trade influenced their respective fields of work, such as the effects trade can have on labor rights and job generation, improving competitiveness, or increasing production standards of exporting countries. The diversity of participants provided a rich atmosphere for discussion.
The second segment of the session featured presentations to illustrate specific tools and mechanisms available to capture the opportunities that trade can provide for a transition towards a green economy. The first intervention was by Michelle Senerman from Fundación Chile´s Center for Sustainable Production and Consumption, on the GE-TOP Chile project, which analyses the trade opportunities of the wine and fresh fruit sector and explores how sustainability standards can help harness these. Mauricio Collado from the University of the Pacific´s Research Center presented theGE-TOP Peru project and its contributions to the development of the Action Plan for the National Biotrade Strategy, which includes an analysis of biotrade exports and an assessment of economic, social, and environmental performance of 13 native biodiversity products. Finally Philippe Vanhuynegem from ILO´s Peru office presented a quinoa value chain study that was developed by the Granos Andinos initiative, which will feed into upcoming PAGE trade activities in Peru.
As part of the Forum’s Knowledge Fair, the Trade and Green Economy Handbook, “Manual de Comercio y Economía Verde” in Spanish, was presented to participants. This followed the successful launch of the Trade and Green Economy Handbook by UNEP’s Executive Director Achim Steiner on April 2015 in Geneva. The Handbook was well received by participants, highlighting how accessible it makes different principles of international trade & environmental governance for a broad non-expert audience. The Handbook was also praised for the relevance of the topics that it covers, such as voluntary standards, intellectual property and public procurement, and for its timeliness, particularly in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which involves three countries in the region (Chile, Mexico and Peru).
