SWITCH Africa Green Programme Launch in Ethiopia

In 2011, Ethiopia launched the Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy, its blueprint for green development, outlining the vision, strategy, financing and institutional arrangements that it will pursue to become a middle-income country by 2025. The strategy has the triple goals of economic growth, net-zero emissions and climate resilience and is mainstreamed into the country’s development plan and green initiative guidance. 

Complementing the ongoing transition towards a green economy in Ethiopia, SWITCH Africa Green is supporting the uptake of innovative green business and sustainable consumption and production practices in the country’s three priority sectors of agriculture, manufacturing and integrated waste management, with five cross-cutting themes: energy efficiency, water efficiency, eco-innovation, standards and labelling, and sustainable trade. Activities on the ground are focused on growing green sectors, capturing market opportunities for resource-efficient green goods and services, and supporting local green entrepreneurs in starting up and developing business ventures in the priority sectors.

Micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has acknowledged the micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) sector as a key driver and as the backbone of economic growth and job creation as the country strives to achieve its ambitious goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2025. 

In Ethiopia, green entrepreneurs are proving to be key actors in technology, innovation and the creative arts, promoting efficiency and productivity, creating new products and services that meet people’s needs, and generating green jobs and enhancing livelihoods while protecting the environment. As a result, the Government of Ethiopia considers greening MSMEs as an essential element of a strategy of poverty alleviation through job creation that is vital to its industrial transformation. To grow green businesses, however, entrepreneurs require an enabling policy environment, capacity development and awareness of the economic, social and environmental opportunities for greening their businesses.

Launch of SWITCH Africa Green

The Government of Ethiopia, the European Union and the United Nations Environment Programme held the SWITCH Africa Green programme inception workshop in Ethiopia in August 2019. 

The main objective of the workshop was to officially launch SWITCH Africa Green in Ethiopia and make the participants aware of the objectives of the programme and their role. It also provided a platform to discuss opportunities for strengthening an enabling environment for eco-entrepreneurship, eco-innovation, sustainable consumption and production and the green economy in Ethiopia. The members of the National Technical Coordination Committee, who will be guiding programme implementation in Ethiopia, were introduced at the meeting.

The launch was attended by Mr. Fekadu Beyene, Commissioner of the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission of Ethiopia; Mr. Erik Habers, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the European Union to Ethiopia; and Mr. Steven Were Omamo, Country Director, World Food Programme, and Acting United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Ethiopia. 

About 90 people attended the event, including senior government officials and representatives of United Nations agencies, the private sector, civil society and manufacturing MSMEs. 
 

Mr. Fekadu Beyene, in his opening speech, said that full implementation of the SWITCH Africa Green Programme in Ethiopia would support the uptake of innovative green business and sustainable consumption and production practices across the three national priority sectors, namely agriculture, manufacturing and integrated waste management. “The launch of the SWITCH Africa Green Programme in Ethiopia comes at a time when the country is undertaking a critical journey of well-rounded and deep reforms geared towards addressing various socioeconomic problems, including the creation of decent jobs for millions of youth and ensuring environmental sustainability,” said Mr. Beyene.

According to Mr. Habers, SWITCH Africa Green will promote green business practices and showcase their benefits with a view to scaling them up, disseminate information, cooperate at the policy level and provide resources for networking.

In his remarks, Mr. Omamo said, “SWITCH Africa Green is a success model of the One United Nations initiative. The United Nations Environment Programme, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Office for Project Services, work closely in each country to support private-sector development, in particular green business development.”

Participants were then invited to discuss the opportunities and challenges for green business development in the three priority sectors.

Participants indicated a number of additional areas for consideration in the country implementation plan for the programme in order to strengthen the policy coherence that enables the Government to benefit from the green economy. The need to put in place sustainable financing and a funding mechanism for MSMEs was also highlighted during the discussion.