GGGI

International Actions to Support Green Growth Innovation Goals

Press Reports — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:51:05 +0000

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Cities and Green Growth

Press Reports — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:00:03 +0000

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Internal Audit Manager, Office of Internal Audit

Global Green Growth Institute — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 07:24:09 +0000

Organization: Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
Post Date: 19 June 2013
Location: Seoul Headquarters
Assignment: Fulltime
Start Date: As soon as possible
Closing Date: Until the position is filled
Position Number: GGGI-HR_13-1001
Details/To apply: Internal Audit Manager, Office of Internal Audit

Kigali hosts meeting on energy efficiency

Global Green Growth Institute — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:16:40 +0000

The city of Kigali in Rwanda two months ago hosted a regional workshop on energy efficiency in building codes.

The three days meeting passed a declaration on mainstreaming energy efficiency in codes, policies and building regulations.

During the three days, around 60 participants discussed building codes and existing regulations in the five East African countries Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

The workshop was held under the framework of the program “Promoting Energy Efficiency in Buildings in East Africa” an initiative of UN-Habitat in collaboration with UNEP, GEF and the East African governments. It was a follow up of the review on existing building codes and regulations, and proposed recommendations towards mainstreaming energy efficiency in building codes in the five countries.

The event was organized by UN-Habitat and the Government of Rwanda, in partnership with The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the World Bank-Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme. The audience included government representatives and practitioners directly involved in the review or development of building codes and regulations, as well as representatives from Senegal, Cameroon and Nigeria. The participants learned about the integration of energy efficiency in building codes and best practices worldwide.

Working groups and experts discussed country issues and developed a roadmap for the transformation of the existing regulations into Resources Efficient Building codes. Efficient use of water, energy, local building material and land were important issues addressed.

Concluding, the government representatives drafted the “Kigali Declaration on Mainstreaming Energy Efficiency in Building Codes; Building Policies and Building Regulation”.

The Declaration dated on 26th of April 2013, calls upon:

Governments of the East African Countries to:

Fully endorse and implement the concept of Energy Efficiency Building Codes (EEBC), and subsequently to review existing building codes, as well as guarantee the involvement and capacity building of relevant stakeholders in energy and resource efficiency requirements set by the new codes,
Adopt and integrate measures of energy and resource efficiency as an essential element of the EEBC,
Harmonize building codes, regulations and laws at the national and among the East African Community in order to achieve coherence,
Create public awareness among all relevant stakeholders regarding the importance of energy efficiency in buildings, the required and available measures, its contribution to mitigate climatic change and the urgent need to make individual contributions,
Identify and promote innovative approaches that demonstrate efficient use of energy and resources with particular emphasis to buildings (currently estimated to account for more than 40% of the available energy),
Organize national and regional exhibitions and awards for the promotion of Energy and Resource Efficiency in Buildings,
Establish a regular forum for networking and exchange of ideas, experiences and best practices which could lead to sustainable buildings,
Actively participate in the collection and dissemination of the required data, especially climatic data that may lead to the successful implementation and recording of the effectiveness of the progress resulting from various initiatives under implementation,
Create an enabling fiscal environment for adopting energy and resource efficient technologies by the private sector,

Development Partners in collaboration with the Governments to:

Share experiences and resources to create both a knowledge pool and meaningful sustainable responses,
Facilitate and support the development of local expertise and research capacity through knowledge sharing, exchange visits, and thematic workshops and training courses,

Training institutions to:

Review and re-orient educational curricula to incorporate energy and resource efficiency as a theme to the benefit of various relevant stakeholders,
Undertake action research on affordable and appropriate building materials, cost-benefit and life-cycle analyses of energy and resource efficient buildings,

The private sector to:

Support and promote energy and resource efficient operations and lifestyle,
Establish voluntary market-based performance-oriented Green Building Rating Systems and to support mandatory Energy Performance Certificates and Energy Savings Performance Contracts,
Establish affordable and sustainable ‘Green Mortgage’ Scheme to support the implementation and scaling-up of energy and resource efficient building projects, and
Develop and supply resource efficient building and construction materials and equipment.

Original article from UN-HABITAT can be found here

GGGI Receives ODA Eligibility Status

Global Green Growth Institute — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 01:00:22 +0000

PARIS –June 13, 2013 –The Global Green Growth Institute was granted Official Development Assistant (ODA) eligibility status today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC), joining an select group of international organizations whose contributions from donor nations are considered ODA.

This development is expected to greatly increase GGGI’s ability to assist developing and emerging economies in green growth planning and implementation. The OECD defines ODA as: Flows of official financing administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as the main objective.

GGGI’s green growth planning work occurs solely in developing countries and its research and public-private cooperation platforms are designed to support and improve green growth in developing countries.

“Today’s decision provides further confirmation of GGGI’s uniqueness as the world’s sole international organization dedicated to green growth — and accredits GGGI as a viable institution dedicated to supporting developing and emerging economies around the world in meeting their aspirations for growth and development through green growth,” said GGGI Council Chair Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

“A world-wide shift to inclusive green growth is the key to eliminating extreme poverty and improving human wellbeing,” said President of the Assembly of GGGI, former President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo. “GGGI is already starting to deploy its unique capabilities to help developing countries who are leading that shift. Today’s decision on ODA eligibility will allow GGGI to work at a greater scale than was possible before, and is therefore a key milestone on the road to GGGI achieving its unique potential.

“GGGI is grateful for initiative and support from the Republic of Korea, which sponsored the ODA application along with Australia, Denmark and Norway, as well as the strong vote of confidence shown by the OECD and the Development Assistance Committee members,” said GGGI Director-General Howard Bamsey.

GGGI is an international organization dedicated to developing and diffusing a new paradigm of economic growth – green growth – which simultaneously balances economic performance and environmental sustainability. Headquartered in Seoul and founded in June 2010, GGGI works in long-term partnership with developing and emerging economies through rigorous green growth planning, research and public-private cooperation. For more information see: www.gggi.org

Intern, International Cooperation

Global Green Growth Institute — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:49:13 +0000

Organization: Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)
Post Date: 14 June 2013
Location: Seoul Headquarters
Assignment: Fulltime Intern
Position Number: GGGI-HR_13-405
Details/To apply: Intern, International Cooperation

GGGI chief seeks greater private-sector role

Global Green Growth Institute — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:51:16 +0000

The Global Green Growth Institute will focus on reinforcing collaborations between governments and the private sector to help developing countries to pursue environment-friendly growth, its new chief Howard Bamsey told The Korea Herald.

The “think and act” tank was set up by the Korean government in 2010 to bridge the rich and poor countries and share technologies and experiences for sustainable development across the world.

The Seoul-based institute was upgraded into an official international organization last year. It has 20 member countries and runs offices in London, Abu Dhabi and Copenhagen.

On Thursday, it was also recognized as a vehicle to execute official development assistance by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s international aid committee. The approval is expected to further spur its growth and attract more donations from rich countries.

In line with its growing roles, the GGGI plans to increase its workforce from the current 100 to 130 by the end of the year.

But the priority will be given to developing customized strategies and securing effective investment over external expansion, he said.

Howard Bamsey, director general of the Global Green Growth Institute. ( Chung Hee-cho/The Korea Herald)

“We’re happy to expand because this is a ‘global’ green growth institute but we don’t want to risk any weakening of the relationships we have now as a result,” he said in a recent interview.

“So we’re balancing the need to continue to consolidate and strengthen those relationships to make them work well, with the need to expand our capacity.”

Bamsey took the helm of the GGGI last month, succeeding inaugural director-general Richard Samans who has returned to the World Economic Forum as managing director for global cooperation.

After spending three years as Canberra’s special envoy for climate change until 2011, Bamsey served as a special advisor on green growth at the Australian Agency for International Development, during which he played an active role in the GGGI Council’s transitional subcommittee in charge of the organization’s status upgrade.

The Australian scholar has also taught at Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute and the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Center.

With ample field experiences, he stressed the significance of cooperation with other key players, especially in the face of economic slowdowns and struggling clean energy markets.

“We need to build collaboration between the private sector, who of course invest money, and the public sector whose role is to support and encourage private-sector financing and make it happen,” Bamsey said.

“When the time comes for the planning to be implemented in an individual country, that’s where the public-private cooperation becomes really instrumental, because we will need creative financial architecture to ensure that the sort of investment the country’s looking for takes place.”

The GGGI supports developing countries in integrating environmentally sustainable growth strategies into their economic goals.

It is currently working in 17 countries including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Vietnam in consultation with the respective governments, financial institutions and other local and international agencies including the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP.

Though global efforts have made little headway to seal a new climate accord, it is an “exciting time” for middle powers like Korea and Australia that have adopted or are planning ambitious programs such as a cap-and-trade and carbon tax, Bamsey said.

The two countries’ initiatives, as well as the GGGI’s success, will take on a crucial role in the negotiations by invoking positive feedback, giving their delegations a bigger say and prompting others to take action themselves.

“One of the key reasons I agreed to this job is that one way you can promote an agreement at that negotiating table is by demonstrating that green growth works, that it works for countries, that it delivers prosperity, and that it helps us meet the environmental concerns we all know about,” he added.

“We certainly need to accelerate the pace of change because the numbers (of greenhouse gas emissions) look quite challenging at present. And seems to me that’s the way of just doing that.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)

Original article here

GGGI Partners with 2030 Water Resources Group to focus on water-energy nexus

Global Green Growth Institute — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 03:25:09 +0000

WRG Executive Director Anders Berntell (left) and GGGI Director-General Howard Bamsey sign a Memorandum of Understanding pledging cooperation between the two organizations.

SONGDO, KOREA –June 11, 2013 –The Global Green Growth Institute and the International Finance Corporation, the implementing entity for the 2030 Water Resources Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding during the Global Green Growth Summit in Songdo, Korea.

The new agreement states that the parties will create a joint program focusing on the water-energy nexus and other issues related to water to be undertaken in selected countries where GGGI currently has green growth planning projects. The two groups also agreed to cooperate more generally on information-sharing and conducting joint activities over a two year period.

“The 2030 Water Resources Group is very happy about the collaboration with the GGGI,” said Anders Berntell, Executive Director of WRG. “GGGI will not only contribute financially to our work, but we will also seek opportunities to work together in the countries where both of us are engaging. This should lead to synergies towards a green growth agenda beyond the sectors that we are respectively working on.”

GGGI and 2030 WRG have collaborated in the past, namely through GGGI’s election to serve as a member of the 2030 WRG Governing Council in January of this year. The MOU formalizes the groups’ relationship and outlines a more concrete plan of action for cooperation.

The 2030 Water Resources Group is an innovative public-private initiative aimed at mobilizing a broad ranger of stakeholders, such as the private sector, government leaders, civil society, and bilateral development agencies and multilateral development banks to support governments willing to accelerate their progress toward national water security. For more information see: http://www.2030wrg.org/

Park vows continued S. Korean support for GGGI

Global Green Growth Institute — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:55:58 +0000

SEOUL, June 10 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Park Geun-hye promised Monday to provide continued support for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international organization launched under her predecessor to help developing countries fight climate change and seek environment friendly growth.

Park made the commitment during a meeting with Lars Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who has been serving as the GGGI’s chairman, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing. Rasmussen was in South Korea for an annual global green growth summit that kicked off two days of meetings earlier Monday.

Under Park’s predecessor, former President Lee Myung-bak, South Korea founded GGGI in 2010 as a think tank charged with developing strategies for the new growth paradigm that calls for fostering “green” technologies and fighting global warming as a fresh engine of economic growth.

The GGGI was officially transformed into an international organization last October.

“President Park stated that our government will provide continued support for GGGI so that it can take firm root as an international organization and play the role of helping developing countries respond to climate change,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Park suggested that the GGGI considers employing South Korea’s “Saemaul,” or new community movement, a government-led campaign launched in the 1970s to modernize its rural areas under her father, then-President Park Chung-hee, as a strategy to help developing nations.

Rasmussen said the organization will try to spread the campaign to developing countries.

Park also expressed gratitude for Denmark’s support for South Korea to win permanent observer status on the Arctic Council and hoped that the two countries will expand cooperation in Arctic-related projects, according to the spokeswoman.

jschang@yna.co.kr
(END)

Original article from Yonhap News here

GGGI summit takes on global growth paradigm

Global Green Growth Institute — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:44:07 +0000


	Lars Rasmussen

SONGDO, Incheon ? The third Global Green Growth Summit 2013 kicked off yesterday, bringing together hundreds of environmental experts from around the world to address the challenges of shifting the global growth paradigm to green growth.

“As an international organization, GGGI plays an important and unique role in promoting green growth and among other things simulating a south-south dialogue,” Lars Rasmussen, chair of the Council of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), said during the opening ceremony of the summit in Songdo Convensia in Songdo, Incheon.

“We believe we can improve the economic, environmental and social conditions of developing countries by acting as a bridge between developing and developed countries and private and public sectors,” he said.

Nearly 600 participants from government, academia, business and the nonprofit sector from 22 countries attended the two-day summit hosted by the GGGI and Korea’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Environment and Strategy and Finance.

Speakers included environmental ministers from Denmark, Guyana, Mexico, Cambodia and Mongolia. Mongolia and Rwanda signed the treaty to join the GGGI on Sunday, bringing the number of members up to 20.

The Seoul-based think tank Global Green Growth Institute was started originally as a nonprofit foundation in June 2010 as a pet project of the Lee Myung-bak administration. It became an international organization last October.

The Green Climate Fund, or the so-called environmental World Bank, will open its secretariat’s headquarters in the I-Tower in the heart of Songdo later this year, and the Korean government yesterday signed a headquarters agreement.

“It is my hope that GGGI and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) over time will become sister organizations,” said Rasmussen, a former Danish Prime Minister.

Ewen McDonald, Australian co-chair of the Green Climate Fund Board, signed the headquarters agreement with the Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se. Fellow co-chair of the GCF Zaheer Fakir was unable to make it to the conference and earlier signed the agreement on June 2 in Bonn.

Korea outbid other countries last year to open the headquarters of the secretariat of the GCF, a fledging international fund dedicated to helping developing nations adapt to the challenges posed by climate change.

McDonald, deputy director-general of the state-run Australian Agency for International Development, or AusAid, told the Korea JoongAng Daily, “It’s a big thing for Korea and it’s a big thing for the Green Climate Fund to have the headquarters agreement signed today.”

This is McDonald’s second time back in Songdo after September last year when Korea won the bid to be home to the GCF.

“I’m very impressed with the leadership that Korea has been showing in the green area,” he said.

After the summit, McDonald will return again to Songdo for a GCF board meeting two weeks later, at which time the date of GCF’s move into the I-Tower will become clearer.

“At the next meeting here in Songdo city, the board will be asked to consider a short-listing of applicants for the executive director [of the GCF] and depending on the outcome of that meeting, hopefully we will see the executive director appointed,” he said, “And then once they are in place, that enables the secretariat to move into that beautiful building that has been established here.”

“This fund has a great opportunity to make a difference across developing countries,” he said.

The summit, which runs until today, hosts various plenary sessions on critical green investments, innovative approaches to getting financing for the Green Climate Fund, and technology and innovation to support green growth.

BY SARAH KIM [sarahkim@joongang.co.kr]

Original article from JoongAng Daily here