Dr Michael Witter, a member of the Caribbean Green Economy Action Learning Group, recently attended an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Environet Expert Workshop on Green Growth, Development Planning and Policy to share Caribbean perspectives and experiences on green economy.
The workshop was held last month in Paris and aimed to share experience, identify lessons and promote good practice amongst development partners on how to advance and support country-led, inclusive green growth initiatives. At the workshop, Dr Witter, a senior research fellow in the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (Salises) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, highlighted the work on green economy being done by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute with the group.
He noted that the workshop provided an important opportunity to share knowledge and build partnerships to support work being done in the Caribbean and given the vulnerabilities of the Caribbean to global economic and environmental shocks, co-operation is important to help address poverty and other development challenges.This workshop focused on in-country green growth initiatives and on how development partners are organising themselves to support these.
It built on the recent OECD book, Putting Green Growth in the Heart of Development, and on a recent guide on national green economy dialogues and diagnostics, Scoping a Green Economy, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), which features discussion on a number of cases including from the Caribbean.