Green growth is a relatively young field of practice. Experience and research is emerging, yet no global systematic analysis has been completed on how governments are coordinating the different external and internal interests, and navigating the opportunities, risks, and hazards. As more governments pursue green growth strategies, assessing experience and sharing lessons become crucial. The Green Growth Best Practice (GGBP) was launched in September 2012, with financial support from CDKN, the European Climate Foundation (ECF), and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), to address this gap by assessing effective green growth practices at all levels of government and all regions of the world, and to share the lessons with practitioners and policy makers to improve the quality of green growth work.

This best practice assessment was conducted from 2012-2014 focusing on the identification of effective country experiences on nine steps of the green growth policy cycle, from planning, analysis, implementation to monitoring. GGBP findings, released in July 2014 as a report titled “Green Growth in Practice: Lessons from Country Experiences” (available at www.ggbp.org), are the first comprehensive global assessment of best practices on green growth. It has generated high interest from government officials, international organisations, and technical institutes who are keen to learn from the results to strengthen their green growth strategies and policies.

GGBP actively engaged practitioners at all stages of the project to ensure that the findings reflected the experience from the field. More than 100 people were consulted to define topics, 75 authors were engaged in conducting the assessment and over 200 thematic and country experts reviewed the findings. The GGBP findings were presented at over 50 conferences/workshops organised by partner organisations and countries.

GGGI led the implementation of GGBP under the guidance of CDKN and ECF and a Steering Committee with representatives from 12 international development institutions and networks. Ecofys Consultancy, the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, the Joint Implementation Network, and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory provided technical support for the project. GGBP has developed partnerships with many international development organisations to collaborate on the assessment and the outreach of the findings.

Project outputs and resources:

Synthesis report: Green Growth Best Practice: Synthesis of key findings
Report: Green Growth in Practice: Lessons from Country Experiences
Feature: What do we know about green growth in practice? Learning from ‘hard evidence’
Event: Launch of “Green Growth in Practice: Lessons from Country Experiences”
News: First ever global assessment of best practices in green growth
CoP17 side event: Green Growth Best Practise Initiative (GGBPI) steering committee meeting

CDKN Funding: GBP £352, 516