GBEP meetings in Rome lead the way forward: Italy and Brazil reconfirmed Chairs and forthcoming new activities in Latin America agreed

At the end of an intense week of GBEP technical meetings, the 14^th Steering Committee of the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) paved the way forward for the next biennium by reconfirming the Chairmanship of Italy and Brazil and by endorsing the forthcoming capacity building activities in Latin America.

The Partnership, which welcomed representatives of the ECOWAS participating as special guests and of Denmark and Zimbabwe as new Observers, gathered in Rome from 12 to 16 November and endorsed the progresses made by the Working Group on Capacity Building (WGCB) in carrying out its activities on the ECOWAS region and on the implementation of the GBEP indicators (see items on Activity Group 1 workshop and Activity Group 2 seminar of this newsletter).

A third Activity Group was formally established and will start its activities with a bioenergy week to be held in Brasilia on 11-15 March 2013, under the leadership of Brazil. It will consists of short training courses to analyze technical and public policy aspects of bioenergy development followed by field trips to biodiesel and bioethanol plants to give the opportunity of sharing bioenergy technology. A preparatory seminar [link to item] of this activity group was held in Rome on 15 November 2012 to provide technical, regulatory and policy tools to facilitate the sustainable development of bioenergy.

A possible growth of the WGCB was also discussed to start two new activities: one on modern wood energy development and another to develop, in close collaboration with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the bioenergy component of the Global Renewable Energy Atlas that IRENA is developping. Given the complexity of both issues, Partners and Observers agreed on the need for a further discussion to finalize the scope of work of the new activities with a view to approve them at the next WGCB.

The next round of GBEP meetings will be in in May 2013 in Berlin, kindly hosted by the Government of Germany.

Back to menu of articles

Leggi le notizie in italiano