Earlier this Week, Regional policymakers and stakeholders from across the Seven (7) member states in Africa assembled at Speke Resort Munyonyo in a conference scheduled to last for three days from the 25th – 26th February 2020 as all discussions were focused on doing green business on the African Continent, Business opportunities and Investments.
This year’s theme ‘’Advancing Green Business and Circular Economy in Africa’’ was geared toward supporting and providing services to Medium, Small and Medium Enterprises in Africa.
The SWITCH Africa Green program was designed to support Seven countries as these include; Uganda, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa and Mauritius to accomplish sustainable development by engaging in the transition towards an inclusive green economy based on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns.
This year’s SWITCH Africa Green regional meeting discussions held at Speke Resort Munyonyo were mainly based on designing techniques in tapping into green business opportunities in Tourism, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Mining and Integrated Waste Management as the programme aims to turn environmental challenges into opportunities based on the understanding that an inclusive green economy is at the core of sustainable development and has multiple benefits next to environmental protection, notably growth and jobs creation, poverty reduction, economic diversification and income generation. The programme also focuses on key enablers for the transition, including access to green financing, enabling policies and standards, circular practices, awareness and skills on eco-entrepreneurship, and innovative solutions.
United Nations Environment Programme Regional coordinator, Resource Efficiency Africa Office Mr. Patrick Mwesigye said that, ‘’ The green business component aims at supporting transformation towards an inclusive economy by providing Services to MSME’s that enable them to start and develop resource-efficient and green business based on sustainable practices’’.
He added that, ‘’The United Nations Environment programme Green business key priority sectors include, Tourism, Agriculture, Mining, Manufacturing and Integrated Waste Management’’.
Charles Arden Clarke, Head at One Planet Network Secretariat said,’’ We have three demand side programmes looking at sustainable Tourism highlights for 2015 – 2019. Removing barriers that create challenges for Green Business development in Africa is now our main agenda’’.
Since its inauguration, SWITCH Africa Green has immensely built a pool of resources, knowledge base and expertise within the four priority sectors; Agriculture, Integrated Waste Management, Manufacturing and above all Tourism sectors. The transition to an inclusive green economy requires scaling up on the cooperation and collaborations among countries as well as creating synergies with emerging trends to achieve the objectives such as circular economy approaches, exploring a workable mechanism for access to finance for green investments etc.