Green Economy

Food Heroes: Cultivating women farmers in Georgia

Published October 13, 2021 | By editor

FAO Food Hero Irina Vasilyeva. A farmer in the central European country, Georgia, has been sharing her lifetime of knowledge with other women farmers in the region, saying that “there is nothing in agriculture that a man can do and a woman can’t.”

Irina Vasilyeva has been chosen as one of 17 Food Heroes by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO), as an example of how access to technical knowledge and innovation can empower smallholder farmers to become agents of change.

Food Heroes are recognized for their commitment to provide food for their communities and beyond. She spoke to the UN ahead of World Food Day, marked annually on 16 October. “My name is Irina Vasilyeva, and I live in the ancient village of Vartsikhe, Bagdati municipality in western Georgia. This is an agricultural community and families here have been involved in farming for centuries.

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LIve: World leaders pledge to power humanity with clean energy

Published October 2, 2021 | By editor

A student passes in front of a 150-megawatt wind farm in the Philippines.

How can the world come together to radically change the way it produces and uses energy, as part of efforts to hold back climate change and to ultimately give humanity a more secure future on planet earth? That’s the question that over one hundred countries, organizations and businesses will be discussing at the United Nations on Friday at the High-level Dialogue on Energy, the first meeting of its kind in 40 years.

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Clean Energy Revolution

Published August 29, 2021 | By editor

The clean energy industry generates hundreds of billions in economic activity, and is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the coming years. There is tremendous economic opportunity for the countries that invent, manufacture and export clean energy technologies.

Responsible development of all of America’s rich energy resources — including solar, wind, water, geothermal, bioenergy & nuclear — will help ensure America’s continued leadership in clean energy. Moving forward, the Energy Department will continue to drive strategic investments in the transition to a cleaner, domestic and more secure energy future. Continue reading →

What will power the post-pandemic global economic recovery?

Published August 28, 2021 | By editor

What will power the post-pandemic global economic recovery? | | UN News

UNDP Mauritius/Stéphane Bellero Coastal communities, like Port Sud-Est in Mauritius, are exposed to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Islands at the forefront

As governments try to kick-start their economies, the UN is calling for recovery plans to be built around low-carbon technologies, to avoid a return to fossil fuel-based “business as usual”. In island economies, importing fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, comes at a considerable costs. This is one of the reasons that some of them are becoming front-runners, in the bid to reduce carbon frontprints, by investing in renewable energy sources.

Mauritius, for example, is planning to generate over a third of its electricity from renewable sources within the next five years. Projects supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), will be an important part of this transition, bringing an additional 25 Mega Watts of solar power to Mauritius, including a mini-power grid in Agalega, one of the outer islands.

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Pursuit for Power Ignites Inspiration: A Young Female Engineer in the Making

Published August 28, 2021 | By editor

Dressed in all-blue overalls, with spades and shovels in hand, a group of young men and women pound the ground digging a long, narrow furrow. The group is on site at a local business in Wau, in South Sudan’s Western Bahr el Ghazal, where they are doing work as part of a paid internship for solar installation to power nearby offices. This is their first internship and their enthusiasm to put to use the skills they learnt is undeniable.

The group is the first cohort under the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Settlement Project which trains and builds the capacity of youth who were previously displaced by protracted conflict and have now returned to their areas of residence in and around the town of Wau.

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