Study Tour for capacity building in Latin America – 6th Bioenergy Week

Study Tour for capacity building in Latin America – 6th Bioenergy Week

 

Each year, the Activity Group 3 under the Working Group on Capacity Building (WGCB) holds a regional capacity building event. In October of this year, the 6th GBEP Bioenergy Week was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The event was kindly organized by the Secretary of Agroindustry and the Secretary of Energy of Argentina in collaboration with GBEP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The 6th Bioenergy Week was a great success, with many expressing their satisfaction at the event taking place in Latin America, a region with favourable conditions for the sustainable development of bioenergy and at the forefront of policy development to promote its future use.

The event gathered over 170 participants from four continents, who included scientists and government officials, as well as representatives from the private sector and civil society organizations. The three day event included two days’ of seminars, where lessons learnt were shared from within the region and beyond on themes directly of interest to the Americas. On the final day, a field trip took participants to YPF Tecnología in La Plata.

It is well recognized that bioenergy is not ‘one size fits all’ and the success of bioenergy requires many context-specific solutions to feedstock and technology challenges. In this context, the Bioenergy Weeks present positive experiences and initiatives that could guide the design and implementation of bioenergy policies. They also provide the opportunity to continue a dialogue with the private sector and other stakeholders on ways to improve mutual cooperation towards a more sustainable production and use of bioenergy.

In the context of climate change, harnessing the great potential of bioenergy to aid in the difficult task of decarbonising the energy sector is more important than ever, and the GBEP Bioenergy Weeks are key for sharing ideas and experiences. Within this, the event examined many bioenergy themes, including global, regional and national policy, wood energy, liquid biofuels, biogas and biomethane, and advanced biofuels.

Many participants praised GBEP for the Bioenergy Week and called on the Partnership, along with other organisations, to bring the information on sustainable bioenergy to a broader audience in order to clear the field of misguided facts. Indeed, in the next year, GBEP is looking to strengthen its partnerships with other organisations in order to promote the sustainable production and use of bioenergy to more stakeholders than ever before. To this end, the study tour will continue on to Asia next year and the 2019 edition of the Bioenergy Week will be held in Manila, Philippines in June 2019.


 

 

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