PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. welcomed on Monday, February 26, 2024, the assistance of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to aid the country’s responsive efforts to climate resilience and promote green growth strategy through the Host Country Agreement (HCA).
As he paid a courtesy visit to Marcos in Malacañang, GGGI president and council chairman, former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, expressed the organization’s support to the efforts of the administration to address climate change.
Marcos expressed his appreciation for the assistance being offered by GGGI with hopes that the Senate will already ratify the HCA signed by the Philippine government with the GGGI in December 2023 for the establishment of its office in the country.
He noted that the world can no longer avoid the bad effects of the changing weather pattern, particularly with the continuous warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“We welcome any assistance or any advice on the subject (climate change). I’m certain that after you meet with the Senate President and you will speak with the senators, the ratification of the agreement will follow very quickly,” he said.
“I think it is something we are all, all of us in government or out of government have really put a great deal of emphasis on simply because it has been… it has affected us greatly. I hope that we can come with some strategies that will help us,” the President added.
Ban recognized that the Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries in terms of natural disasters caused by climate change as he looked forward to working with the Philippines’ foreign, environment, and economy ministers.
The GGGI, with headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, was established as an international intergovernmental treaty-based organization in 2012 at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, dedicated to supporting and promoting strong, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies.
The Philippines has been a member of GGGI since 2012.
The organization has provided the Philippines with technical assistance and capacity building programs, amounting to more than US$13 million, to help the country attain its sustainable development goals, particularly in promoting climate resilience and green growth development strategy.
GGGI also provided interventions towards building green finance portfolios for the Philippines and unlocking access to international climate finance.
Among its notable projects and local actions in the country are the Provincial Agriculture Center (PAC) and four agri-MSME production facilities in Oriental Mindoro for incubation, facility rentals, and aggregator services linking local farmers to market and green job creation, off-grid solar home systems deployment in disaster vulnerable low-income communities in the Surigao Islands, and upscaling the Bataan Electric Public Transport Program.
GGGI’s current projects and activities in the Philippines amount to US$130.3 million. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)