On October 30-31 2008, over 100 representatives of civil society organisations, the academia, the private sector and government agencies met in Addis Ababa to reflect on the question “Environmental sustainability and/or economic growth?” The title purposely contained “and/or” and was punctuated with a question mark in bold at the end, to indicate the question was open for debate.

The debates took place on the first and second day of the event, and were based on presentations about the social and environmental costs of economic growth and the benefits and costs or disadvantages of large and small-scale agriculture. A final discussion on how to use environmental protection to promote economic growth in Ethiopia followed upon the presentation of win-win concepts, strategies and practices. The latter included power point presentations on green accounting, environmental impact assessments,
organic labelling and cleaner production as well as a poster exhibition on organic cotton, eco-tourism, improved watershed management and renewable energy. Before going into the final discussion, the participants were given time to go around and discuss with the poster presenters.

This publication contains the papers presented at the GF 2008 event and the major comments they elicited. This is followed by the summary points of the debates held during the event. The final declaration, which is the output of the event, comes at the end of the document. The power point and poster presentations are not included in this report.
We hope these proceedings will contribute to furthering the debate among all stakeholders as well as the public at large, and will encourage everyone to put the statements in the final declaration into action.

You can download the PDF file here