23 February 2011 - Investing around $1.3 trillion – or two per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) – into ten key sectors can kick-start a transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient 'green economy' that can also help reduce poverty, says a United Nations report launched this week.

"There would not be a country more relevant for Green Economy approaches than Afghanistan - a country that is rebuilding its ruined economy, while more than 80 percent of its population relies on natural resources for livelihoods,” said Asif Ali Zaidi, Head of Operations at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Geneva.
According to the report - “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication” - the key sectors to creating a ‘green economy’ are agriculture, buildings, energy supply, fisheries, forestry, industry including energy efficiency, tourism, transport, waste management and water.

The Afghan Deputy Director of the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA), Najibullah Yamin, was among the environment ministers from more than 100 countries who attended the report launch on Monday at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

NEPA leads the efforts for environmental management and sustainable development in Afghanistan, with support from the UNEP, including in national development programmes that focus on health, transport, water and energy, agriculture and education.

Since much of the Afghanistan infrastructure, economic and social affairs are now being rebuilt, there is a great opportunity, to “build back better”, and leapfrog the development curve, said the Officer-in-Charge of UNEP Afghanistan, Wali Modaqiq.

“This means green, sustainable planning, integrated across the government through the inter-ministerial Committee for Environmental Coordination.”

According to the UNEP report, a green economy could be a key catalyst for growth and poverty eradication in developing ones too, where up to 90 per cent of the majority of GDP of the poor is linked to nature or natural capital such as forests and freshwaters.

“With 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day and with more than two billion people being added to the global population by 2050, it is clear that we must continue to develop and grow our economies,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“But this development cannot come at the expense of the very life support systems on land, in the oceans or in our atmosphere that sustain our economies, and thus, the lives of each and everyone of us,” he added.

“The green economy provides a vital part of the answer of how to keep humanity's ecological footprint within planetary boundaries. It aims to link the environmental imperatives for changing course to economic and social outcomes – in particular economic development, jobs and equity.”

According to UNEP, the world currently spends between one and two per cent of global GDP on a range of subsidies that often perpetuate unsustainable resources use in areas such as fossil fuels, agriculture, including pesticide subsidies, water and fisheries.

More information about the report is available at the UN News Centre.

By UNAMA Kabul and UN News Centre