March 2009: The Director of the Division for Sustainable Development of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), Tariq Banuri, has co-authored a UN-DESA Policy Brief titled “A Global Green New Deal for Sustainable Development.”

The brief suggests three main elements for a Global Green New Deal: financial support to developing countries; national stimulus packages in developed and developing countries aiming at reviving and greening national economies; and international policy coordination to ensure that the developed countries’ stimulus packages are effective in creating jobs in developed countries, and that these jobs will also facilitate the generation of strong developmental impacts in developing countries.
In relation to the proposal to support developing countries, the brief suggests that “The crisis and the required fiscal response should also provide an opportunity to make long-term investments in agricultural development to address the problem of food insecurity and in the ‘greening’ of the economies of developed and developing countries in order to combat climate change.” [The policy brief]