More than 100 Jordanian stakeholders gathered last month in Amman for the SwitchMed Synergy Workshop devoted to “Green entrepreneurs and grassroots ecological and social innovations: agents of change towards a green economy in Jordan”, organised jointly by Jordan’s Ministry of Environment and the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC), the SwitchMed implementing partner for activities related to green entrepreneurship and civil society initiatives.

The event provided a platform for relevant stakeholders to exchange and identify recommendations on how to promote green growth in Jordan by further empowering green entrepreneurs, grassroots initiatives and the organisations that support them. Participants included distinguished green entrepreneurs, representatives of leading grassroots initiatives that incorporate ecological and social innovations, public institutions including the newly established Green Economy Unit at the Jordan Ministry of Environment, as well as prominent supporting organisations that provide training and incubation support and leading financial actors in this area.

The Synergy Workshop saw the establishment of a set of key recommendations developed by the stakeholders in Jordan contributing to the development of a green economy, including entrepreneurs, civil society initiatives, public sector, supporting organisations and the financial sector. These recommendations will serve to support calls for increased attention to green and social enterprises and their contributions to sustainable development goals, in Jordan and the Mediterranean region. Another outcome of the workshop will be a White Paper that captures the recommendations articulated by stakeholders during the event and that will also integrate the results of 31 in-depth stakeholder interviews that were conducted prior to the workshop.

Finally, SCP/RAC will prepare a regional report that summarises the common trends identified during the Synergy Workshops conducted in all eight of the SwitchMed participating countries. This regional report will provide evidence of the identified needs of countries for sustained support of capacity building and technical support to foster green and social enterprises in the Mediterranean.

The SwitchMed sustainable consumption and production programme aims to promote a switch by the Mediterranean economies towards sustainable consumption and production patterns and green economy, including low-emission development, through demonstration and dissemination of methods that improve resource and energy efficiency. It also seeks to minimise the environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of products and services and, where possible, to promote renewable energy.

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