2018, Year of Sustainable Consumption and Production: the SWITCH programmes pursue their contribution to SDG 12
date: 28/09/2018
SWITCH-Asia organised an event both to launch its new phase and to gather participants for its regional networking event in September: after a decade of implementation, the European Commission pursued the SWITCH-Asia Programme with the announcement of its second phase, SWITCH-Asia II, in 2017. The programme covers 19 countries in the region.
The programme promotes sustainable growth, contributes to economic prosperity and poverty reduction in Asia, supports the development of a green economy and encourages climate change mitigation.
The second SWITCH Africa Green Regional Networking Forum brought together SWITCH Africa Green partners and stakeholders to:
- Share opportunities and challenges, lessons and experiences as well as build synergy and complementarity between different stakeholders involved in green business development and SCP activities;
- Provide a platform for discussions on how to advance an enabling environment for green enterprises in the participating countries and Africa as a whole;
- Explore opportunities for scaling up and replicating successful interventions in the programme.
- Contribute to the Rebranding Africa Forum (RAF) that will be held back-to-back with the Regional Networking Forum.
An exhibition offered a window to participating enterprises from SWITCH partner programmes, including SWITCH-Asia and SwitchMed, to show how they have greened their businesses and inspire others by displaying knowledge, best practices and lessons learned.
SwitchMed Connect 2018, 'The Circular Economy in action in the Mediterranean', will be the third annual gathering of the EU-funded SwitchMed Programme. More than 300 Mediterranean stakeholders including policy and financial institutions, leading SMEs, entrepreneurs, and initiatives driving applications of productive, circular and sharing economies in their countries will come together in Barcelona to exchange knowledge generated during the first phase of the SwitchMed programme, and discuss ways to scale up the use of social and eco innovations.
The agenda of SwitchMed Connect 2018 features a unique blend of expert discussions, entrepreneurial stories, good practices and hands-on applications about green and circular economy planning and implementation in the South and North Mediterranean countries.