Asia-Europe Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unparalleled global health crisis that has caused grave disruption to the global economy, trade and travel. It is a crisis that has resulted in unprecedented job losses and heavily impacted the lives of people and economies across the globe. Crisis situations, however, also offer unprecedented opportunities. The time is right for us to re-set and re-structure our economies in the post-pandemic era to accelerate the transition to a Green Economy.

In keeping with the theme of the SIEW, the session will pay particular emphasis on the energy sector, focusing on job creation and incentives to assist/persuade developing countries and economies are strongly dependent on fossil fuels to accelerate their transitions to a green economy. The roundtable will also look at training and advances in technologies that could help aspiring countries leapfrog some of the stages of the transition process. Financing would be another key factor, in terms of what more affluent countries can do together with relevant international and private sector financial institutions to facilitate the global move towards a cleaner energy and green economy.

The time is now for us to work together – both public and private sector – to come up with innovative yet pragmatic solutions to discuss the following:

• How can governments and companies work together to identify what jobs are likely to be needed in the Green Economy, for SMEs and MSMEs?
• How then do we best equip our citizens/population with the relevant knowledge and skillsets?
• How can more affluent countries, international organisations and big business contribute to accelerate the transition of developing countries to the green economy?

Watch the On-demand sessions here!