CATIE actively participates in the most important environmental economics meeting for the Global South

• The main meeting of the Environment for Development (EfD) initiative was attended by 180 researchers from various continents, supporting efforts in environmental economics focused on research, education, and policy advocacy.

Representatives from CATIE’s (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) Environmental Economics and Sustainable Agribusiness Unit (UEAAS-EfD), including Róger Madrigal, coordinator of UEAAS/EfD, Pablo Evia, researcher and coordinator of CATIE’s Sustainable Consumption and Production program (SCOPE), and Nathalie Solano, administrative officer of UEAAS/EfD, participated in this meeting, which took place from October 3-6 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Róger Madrigal commented that CATIE's participation in this meeting was highly relevant as it allowed for the strengthening of cooperation and knowledge exchange ties with research centers and various universities in Africa, Europe, and the United States on issues related to circular economy and efficient water management in the context of climate change.

Pablo Evia highlighted the progress of CATIE’s SCOPE Program del CATIE para concretar oportunidades de financiamiento para proyectos de investigación y de diseño de políticas. Lo anterior con el fin de reducir la pérdida de alimentos en las cadenas de producción y consumo, y el beneficio que esto puede traer para poblaciones vulnerables en el Sur Global y Centroamérica en particular.  Además, presentó una investigación sobre el uso de inteligencia artificial y modelos de lenguaje de gran tamaño (LLMs) en temas de economía ambiental.

For her part, Nathalie Solano participated in a workshop focused on capacity building for the administrative staff of EfD centers, with the goal of streamlining reporting and payment processes.

EfD's central office commented: “The ambition is for the increase in knowledge to be beneficial to the staff in other contexts, besides, for example, the reports prepared for Swedish cooperation (ASDI).”

Additionally, during the awards dinner, Francisco Alpizar, an associate researcher of EfD-CA and one of the founders of this initiative at CATIE, received the Peter Berck Award for Best Discussion Paper for his research titled Disentangling the chicken or egg causality dilemma of household waste sorting and segregated waste collection: A randomized controlled trial in India, developed together with Shivani Wadehra and Zihan Nie as part of CATIE's SCOPE program.

This year, the meeting was organized in collaboration with the African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE), strengthening ties with EfD and highlighting key economic issues in Kenya and the rest of the Global South.

Photo credits: The images in this note were taken by Kevin Wamz and Himba Patrick for EfD.