Capacity Building

Capacity building as a means to promoting sustainable development is broad and can encompass a multitude of activities. It can mean building abilities, relationships and values that enable organizations and individuals to achieve their development objectives. It can also mean initiating a process of change within a state, civil society or the private sector.

Enhancing the capacities of countries to design and implement policies that contribute to sustainable development is at the core of all UNEP ETB's activities. UNEP ETB seeks to build capacities of developing countries and countries with economies in transition to develop and implement mutually supportive trade, economic and environmental policies. To achieve these objectives, UNEP ETB supports country projects, facilitates regional consultations and policy dialogues, supports thematic research and provides reference and training materials tailored to the needs of decision makers, national experts, governments and non-governmental institutions in developing countries.

Country Projects

The country projects are designed and conducted by national teams of practitioners and are central to UNEP ETB's capacity building activities. Based on a multi-stakeholder process and concluding with a set of practical proposals, they help countries to design integrated policies that combine economic, social and environmental objectives.

Awareness Raising and Consensus Building

UNEP ETB conducts and facilitates regional consultations and policy dialogues that are designed to raise awareness, foster partnerships and build consensus on what constitutes mutually supportive economic, trade and environment policies. They also aim to identify recent capacity building needs and priorities.

Partnerships and Networking

UNEP ETB is developing partnerships with other organizations working in its programme areas at national, regional and international levels. The UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force (CBTF) launched in 2000, for example, combines efforts to build capacities on trade, environment and development. Further, UNEP ETB has entered into agreements with a number of national training and research institutes, regional organizations, universities and international NGOs and launched in March 2004 the Network of Institutions for Sustainable Development (NISD). Through this network, UNEP ETB promotes the dissemination of new reports, manuals and training packages.

Thematic Research

ETB takes an action-oriented approach to research work, based mainly on the country studies experiences, and involves national experts, governments and non-governmental organizations. UNEP ETB has published a number of research papers and analytic studies.

Advancing knowledge and Understanding

The reference material developed from this research is designed to enhance decision makers' understanding of the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts of their policies. Further, UNEP ETB supports training activities at regional level to strengthen the capacities of trainers, researchers and policy makers. Training resource manuals and training-of-trainers intend to assist trainers in their efforts to pass on knowledge and skills to others.