KEPSA Chair, Mr. Jaswinder Bedi, a member of the Partnering for Green Growth and Global Goals (P4G) Global Advisory Council, attended the inaugural council meeting that took place on September 23, 2023, in Bogota, Colombia. The meeting, chaired by the President and CEO of the World Resources Institute, Mr. Ani Dasgupta, and co-chaired by Mr. Bruce MacMaster, President of the National Business Association of Colombia (ANDI), aimed to build a common understanding of the vision and purpose, and foster engagement and alignment of the second phase of P4G and the evolving global climate and sustainable development agenda.

The council members also shared their reflections on the 3^rd P4G Summit. From the reflections, Mr Bedi, highlighted that the Summit had resonated focus and outcome with the just concluded Africa Climate Summit Nairobi Declaration. “It is clear that climate change is real and that the private sector has a key role to play in innovating solutions, adopting green production and sustainable trading practices, and that fostering collaboration across boards is required in order to speed and scale the interventions,” said the KEPSA Chair.

The Kenyan government representative present at the council meeting, Mr Peter Odhengo, who is the head of climate finance and the green growth unit at the National Treasury and Economic Planning, further highlighted that P4G played a critical role in creating a dialogue between the government and private sector on green and climate change solutions. There is a need to strengthen and institutionalize P4G at the country level, enhance technology transfer, foster coordination within and outside institutions and countries in order to undertake the scale and global reforms required for addressing climate change, and mobilize climate finance.

The P4G Global Executive Director, Ms. Robyn McGuckin, shared the vision of the second phase of P4G, which is to support locally-led green enterprises to drive green growth and climate transitions in food, energy, water, and sustainable cities. As part of the global discourse on mobilizing the private sector for climate action, she observed that “you can’t bring in private sector companies to climate action unless you bring them to invest." P4G phase two will focus on early climate business start-ups and SMEs in order to nurture and grow innovative ideas and support them as they grow into future climate titans. The P4G national platforms provide an opportunity to share knowledge and learn across countries to grow business solutions and create the requisite enabling environments.

Six years shy of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals timeline of 2030, there is no longer time to waste; we need to find very clever solutions to address poverty across the globe, which is further exuberated by the climate crisis, remarked the Advisory Council Meeting Chairman, Mr. Andi.

Mr. Bruce, the co-chair of the meeting, reflected that the summit demonstrated that Public-Private Partnership for the green transition is imperative, that there is a close relationship between the pursuit of the sustainability agenda and politics, and that the summit fosters dialogue between the global north and the global south. The meeting concluded with a call to action for all members present to act, make the respective national platforms thrive and facilitate private sector participation and at scale contribution to climate action and green growth.