On March 20 & 21, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MECC) and the Qatar office of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) organized a two-day capacity building and stakeholder consultation workshop in Doha on the “State of Circular Economy in Qatar”. It convened ~50 officials from relevant government ministries, large and small private sector entities, as well as civil society organizations. The workshop was designed to be highly interactive with extensive engagement of and feedback from participants across two days.

The first day of the workshop covered the circular economy concepts, frameworks, and best practices from Qatar and abroad, while considering the strategic objectives and local conditions of Qatar. The second day was dedicated to reviewing the state of circular economy in Qatar using an analytical framework and reviewing the barriers and way forward to scale up the circular economy in the country.

In his opening remarks, the representative from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Eng. Mahmoud Al-Marwani stated that “One of the ministry’s initiatives is to promote circular economy in Qatar, led by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and in cooperation with the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). It aims to address challenges and increase opportunities for adopting a circular economy for economic diversification, climate action, pollution prevention, and resource efficiency in Qatar.”

GGGI’s Country Representative, Dr. Pranab Baruah welcomed and introduced the participants to the workshop objectives and current global discourse on circular economy. He highlighted the importance of circular economy for innovation, competitive advantage, and economic diversification in Qatar.

The workshop content was developed and delivered by a team of GGGI and external experts specialized in circular economy. It is part of GGGI Qatar’s capacity building initiative under the MECC-GGGI Cooperation Program on climate change and green growth.

MECC is GGGI’s focal ministry in Qatar and is working with the Institute on a number of other strategic policy and implementation areas as well, such as the development of a national green economy strategy and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system for Qatar. GGGI also has multi-year cooperation agreements with the aid agency Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs.