Pardee Center publishes second report with UNDP Guinea-Bissau: “Exploring Alternative Futures of Development: The Cost of Not Going Green"
In December 2022, The Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Guinea-Bissau hosted the second of two events in Guinea-Bissau to launch the report “Exploring Alternative Futures of Development: The Cost of Not Going Green". This report is the second in a two-part series and follows up on insights from the previous report and in-country workshop in March, providing specific policy recommendations to create a better, more sustainable future.
Building on the first report in the series, which forecast and assessed the current path of economic and human development in the country, the “Cost of Not Going Green” report explores how a strategy of green growth can further economic and human development in Guinea-Bissau and what is necessary to enable that strategy to succeed.
The report finds that it is critical to build an enabling environment, through progress on education, governance, and infrastructure, in order to successfully implement a green growth strategy and ensure that green growth policies can improve conditions and build prosperity for Bissau-Guineans.
With this enabling environment in place, the study examines the benefits of building a green economy through progress in agriculture, fisheries, eco-tourism and the energy sector. It finds that a green economic transition can accelerate development in the country along with progress toward U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) achievement. But for For that to happen, green policies need to be combined with human development improvements, economic diversification, and will require significant support from the international community through aid and investment.
After the report launch, Pardee hosted a training workshop on International Futures (IFs) modeling. Following a virtual workshop series held in 2021 and a broad in-person workshop in March of 2022, participants from the Ministry of Finance’s General Directorate of Forecasting and Economic Study and the National Statistics Institute of Guinea-Bissau convened to learn more about the economic and financial modeling in IFs and gain hands-on experience building and analyzing scenarios. The training was facilitated by Pardee Associate Director of Development Analysis Taylor Hanna and Research Associate Stellah Kwasi.
Research for the report was led by Willem Verhagen Mark Meziere, David Bol, Bailey Howe and Jonathan D. Moyer. Additional contributing authors include Emily Slusser, Mohammod Irfan, Manon Robin, Christopher Lilyblad, Duhitha Wijeyratne, Adjombi Té and Inácio Ie. The UNDP Guinea-Bissau team includes Tjark Egenhoff and José Levy. The support team includes Elena Touriño Lorenzo, Aguide Gomes Sa, Sarvesh Singhal, Santa Alvñes Cardoso, Rebecca Stephan, Anajulia Barney and José R. Solorzano.
Both reports are available on the Pardee website.