| GBEP Steering Committee advances capacity building activities: new GBEP activity group established in Berlin meetings
GBEP held in Berlin last 29 and 30 May the 4th meeting of its Working Group on Capacity Building for Sustainable Bioenergy (WGCB) and the 15th meeting of the Steering Committee. The meetings were preceded by the Policy Forum “Opportunities for Sustainable Bioenergy Development: National Experiences and Global Exchange”, held on 28 May 2013 in Berlin, organized by GIZ (German Academy for International Cooperation, in collaboration with the GBEP.
The GBEP Steering Committee welcomed the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) as new Partner while Ethiopia and the International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined as new Observers. The meetings discussed the status and further advancement of the Activity Groups (AG) currently established under the umbrella of the GBEP WGCB. In particular, the Berlin meetings officially closed the activities if AG1 “Regional Forums/Workshops on Sustainable Modern Bioenergy”, which held three workshops from March 2012 to March 2013 in Bamako (Mali), Rome (Italy) and Brasilia (Brazil) with the aim of supporting ECOWAS Member States in developing regional and national bioenergy strategies, identifying biomass resource assessment and mapping and fostering exchange of information and know-how to improve methods for using sustainable modern bioenergy. A report of the AG1 will be developed and submitted to the next GBEP Steering Committee at the end of this year.
While the Activity Group 2 presented the experiences and lessons learned from the pilot testing currently ongoing in Colombia, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia, Netherlands and USA – some of which will be compiled and presented in a report prepared by Ecofys, commissioned by the NL Agency of the Dutch Government, and available before the summer 2013 – the Activity Group 3 updated the Partnership on the results of the Bioenergy Week held in Brasilia last March. This event in Brasilia was attended by more than 100 people from over 30 countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia, and contributed to foster sustainable bioenergy deployment, particularly in developing countries where biomass use is prevalent. It consisted of sessions with specific themes of sustainable production and use of bioenergy, where effective policy frameworks were discussed, taking into account the GBEP work on sustainability indicators. Moreover, it was proposed to organize the next “Bioenergy Week” in Mozambique in spring 2014: main focus of the workshop will be the discussion on specific sustainability themes like agro-ecological zoning, small-scale production, family farming, regulatory and institutional framework, and food security.
The meetings also discussed the establishment of two additional Activity Groups: the Activity Groups 4 “Towards sustainable modern wood energy development”, and the Activity Group 5 “The Global Renewable Energy Atlas – Bioenergy Component.” While for AG4 more discussion was requested in order to better define the scope of work, Activity Group 5 “The Global Renewable Energy Atlas – Bioenergy Component” was officially established (see separate item of this newsletter).
The next GBEP meetings will take place in Rome at the end of November 2013 and will also include a workshop on ways to achieve sustainable bioenergy development and food security.
Details of the Working Group on Capacity Building meeting are available on the GBEP website.
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