Propelling P4G’s Progress:Update from P4G Board and National Platforms Meetings

Partnering For Green Growth and Global Goals (P4G)’s Board of Directors and representatives from its national platforms and organizational partners met on April 12, 2019 in Washington, DC, to discuss how best to support the initiative’s growth and continued success in 2019 and beyond.The board was updated on P4G’s annual meeting planned for September 22, 2019 in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nation (UN) Climate Action Summit 2019. On September 23, P4G expects to lead acceleration workshops for three to five of its 2018 partnerships and showcase its 2019 scale-up and state-of-the-art partnerships during an awards luncheon. In addition, P4G is hoping to participate in the UN Climate Action Summit’s Energy Transition track, which will beled by Denmark and Ethiopia with support from Sustainable Energy for All – an International Organization working with leaders in government, the private sector and civil society to drive further, faster action toward achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7, which calls for universal access to sustainable energy by 2030 – and the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit.
The board agreed to accept an additional four countries for membership to P4G in 2020. These countries will be announced in the coming months.
Ulla Tørnæs, P4G’sBoard Co-chair and Minister for Development Cooperation- Denmark, expressed enthusiasm for P4G’s progress and its potential to support sustainable development and growth through partnerships. “We are pleased that the first P4G partnerships are now unfolding — partnerships that will help electrify rural Africa and replace diesel buses with clean alternatives in Latin America, to mention a few. These partnerships will show impact on the ground and help us prove the concept of P4G.”
Threeboard meeting attendees shared brief updates on the following P4G 2018 partnerships: Sustainable Special Economic Zones by Dr. Julius Muia, Principal Secretary, State Department For Planning, The National Treasury and Planning – Kenya; Zero Emission Bus Rapid-Deployment Accelerator by Rafael Puyana, Deputy General Director for Sectors, Colombia National Planning Department, and the Sustainable Food Platform by Peter Steen Mortensen, Senior Manager, Global Public Affairs, Novozymes.
“Under Kenya’s Vision 2030, P4G is one of the instruments to accelerate our achievement of our national goals,” said Dr. Muia. “P4G is a framework to work in a better way, by bringing together the public and the private sectors to advance Green Growth. This is already happening with the Sustainable Special Economic Zones being planned within the P4G partnership in Kenya.”
In Colombia, Puyana reported that the city of Medellín will have 64 electric buses operating by the end of the year and that it plans to convert its entire fleet to zero-emission buses by 2030.In Chile, Pablo Solar, the Political Officer, Chilean Embassy in Washington, noted that Santiago has deployed 200 electric buses—making it the largest deployment in Latin America.
Novozymes has joined the Sustainable Food Platform in its work to create a locally-sourced, nutritious biscuit in Ethiopia. Mortensen reported that working together with DanChurchAid, Technical University of Denmark and local Ethiopian companies, the partnership is exploring biscuits made from locally-grown quinoa and chickpeas that can be mass produced in Ethiopia.
New board member Karin Finkelston – International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s Vice President in charge of Partnerships, Communications and Outreach -said P4G’s goals align well with IFC’s goals. “We need public-private partnerships to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Organizations like ours are seeking to fund projects that are fit for purpose and contribute to a more sustainable world.”
About P4G
P4G – Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 – is currently funding and facilitating 24 public-private partnerships. These include projects to accelerate the adoption of electric buses in Latin America, expand the supply of renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa, reduce food loss and waste in Indonesia and reduce plastic and packaging waste from e-commerce in China. P4G is a collaborative partnership amongst nine partner countries: Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam. In addition, C40, World Economic Forum, Global Green Growth Institute, IFC and World Resources Institute, which hosts P4G’s global hub, are partner organizations to P4G.
In Kenya, the Government appointed the Cabinet Secretary, The National Treasury and planning to be the P4G Global Board representative. Consequently, the P4G initiative is anchored in the National Treasury and Planning and specifically domiciled within the State Department for Planning. The National Treasury and Planning, and The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Kenya alongside the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat (VDS) and Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) are the hosts of the Kenya P4G National Platform.