14 March 2014: The International Workshop titled ‘Green and Social: Managing Synergies and Trade-offs’ explored how existing development pathways can be transformed to become more environmentally sustainable and more socially inclusive. The workshop, organized by the German Development Institute (DIE) and the Poverty Reduction, Equity and Growth Network (PEGNet), took place on 12-14 March 2014, in Bonn, Germany.

The first two days of the workshop featured a series of paper presentations, keynote speeches and panel discussions. On the third day, an invitation-only dialogue was held with about 50 researchers, civil society representatives, government officials and representatives of international organizations, who came together to discuss how possible trade-offs may be addressed in the design of the post-2015 development agenda.

Concluding comments underlined the need to: identify new development pathways to improve human development within planetary boundaries; address aspects of global climate change that threaten to undermine progress in human prosperity; and redefine human prosperity to show that it is possible to be happy at lower levels of prosperity than currently enjoyed by the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). They also called for strong leadership to tackle negotiations for green and social issues, and stressed that “social” is not just about fighting poverty, but about inequality. [IISD RS Meeting Coverage]