On 13 December 2017, PAGE organized a planning workshop between three active development initiatives in Burkina Faso, namely the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), the Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) and SWITCH Africa Green (SAG). The workshop took place at the Directorate General of Environment, Green Economy and Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The workshop took stock of the work done on green economy and sustainable development in the country and, later, laid out each programme’s priority work areas for the year 2018. Based on the priorities, the three initiatives then developed a common workplan that saw opportunities for joint collaboration and synergies relevant to the advancement of the green economy agenda in Burkina Faso.

Over 15 participants took part in the workshop, including representatives from the government who are in charge of monitoring the implementation of the activities, representatives of partner UN agencies together with representatives from the programmes’ beneficiaries. 

The Secretary General for Green Economy under the Ministry of Environment, Dr. Sibdou Sina, chaired the meeting and highlighted the government’s unwavering support for ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of the synergies built across the different programmes.

The meeting concluded with developing a joint workplan that further refined activities and identified specific synergies that will offer the chance for common coordination, co-financing and knowledge sharing. In addition, participants formed a working group on green economy with a mandate to monitor the implementation of the workplan and promote both internal and external communication of set activities relevant to green economy. The working group agreed to meet regularly to seek updates on the implementation of the workplace, while setting a date for the first follow-up meeting by end of March 2018.