The new CDKN Guide, Green growth - implications for development planning, contributes to an expanding debate.  Aimed primarily at national planners and policy advisors in developing countries, the Guide focuses on the role of economic tools in planning for green growth.

How do decision makers create a vision and strategy for green growth? What skills do planners need to work effectively with the range of green growth tools available? And how to assess which tools are right for them?  These are some of the questions explored by the CDKN Guide.

The Guide concludes that green growth planning needs to be an iterative process, adapting to local developments over time and responding to the needs of national and local stakeholders. Planners rarely find the process straightforward and rely on economic principles and tools to inform the process. However, conventional tools may not address environmental and social dimensions adequately or look beyond economic metrics.

New tools and methods have emerged and existing ones have also evolved. Opening up these tools so that they're more than a 'black box' and using them to obtain stakeholders' buy-in remain key challenges.

The Guide touches on case studies in Borneo (Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei) and Rwanda to highlight how stakeholder participation in green growth planning can work in practice.