United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics
Economics and Trade Branch

Use of Economic Instruments for Environmental Management in Asia Training-of-Trainers Workshop

27-29 April 2005, New Delhi, India

The 3-day Training-of-Trainers Workshop on the Use of Economic Instruments (EI) for Environmental Management in Asia was organized by IRADe (Integrated Research and Action for Development, India) and supported financially and technically by UNEP’s Economic and Trade Branch. UNEP’s Division of Environmental Policy Implementation and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests provided additional support.

The workshop targeted representatives from policy research and environment institutes, universities and training institutes in Asia. It aimed to deepen their understanding on the design and implementation of EIs and to further develop their skills to train policy makers and other stakeholders in the topic. 19 participants from 11 Asian countries attended the workshop, including China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Mongolia, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The workshop programme combined interactive group work with input by several resource persons coming mainly from Indian research institutions and government as well as UNEP-ETB. It covered the following topics:

  • Introduction to the main economic concepts underlying EIs
  • Benefits and different types of EI and main steps for their implementation
  • Environmental fiscal reform
  • Case studies on successes and failures in the implementation of EI in different countries
  • Use of EI in different Multilateral Environmental Agreements

In the course of the workshop, participants also worked in groups on country specific environmental problems identified prior to the workshop, first analyzing the main economic causes for the problem and then presenting a possible EI to address it. The participants stated that they greatly benefited from sharing different perceptions and experiences with EI in the workshop. They suggested a range of follow-up activities that they could initiate in their respective countries, such as:

  • organize national workshop on the use of EI for different states in India
  • integrate part of the workshop sessions in existing training programmes and curricula
  • initiate case studies in EI at national level and comparative studies at regional level
  • suggest the topic for students’ research
  • write articles on the topic in national journals, and
  • plan workshops for policymakers on EI at national level.