Blog: Realising a 'Green Economy': A view from the South

[Kimbowa Richard]

Preparatory work for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)as knows as Rio20, to be held in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil in May 2012 is well underway. This major UN Conference follows the 2002 Johannesburg Summit and the 1992 Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro)

Rio20 seeks to secure renewed commitment for sustainable development, assess progress and implementation gaps in (previous Rio and Johannesburg) Summit outcomes on sustainable development, and to address new and emerging challenges.

This sounds like what the Johannesburg Summit also sought to achieve in 2002. What then is new about Rio20? My view is that the framework seems to be guided by the 2 themes namely:

- A green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty
- Institutional framework for sustainable development

It is regard to this framework that I would like to contribute to the seemingly unclear common understanding of what 'green economy' means to different people in different parts of the world, and what its ultimately its implications are. In addition, there lacks a contextual understanding leave alone any substantive discussion on what 'green economy' would mean and entail in Uganda's case.

More: http://southgreeneconomy.blogspot.com/