Josephine Balila is a community mobilizer in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Since 2019, she works for an EU-funded project aimed at bringing degraded land back to productivity.

Yangambi, the town where she lives, was once home to an important agriculture research centre, surrounded by thousands of hectares of experimental plantations of rubber and oil palm, amongst other tropical commodities. These days, the land is mainly used by local farmers to grow subsistence crops such as cassava, but decades of overexploitation have depleted the soil and harvests are very poor.

Our economies are not set in stone. They can be upgraded, overhauled, transformed. And positive change is already happening around the world - building economies that are fairer, greener and more resilient. The Green Economy Coalition has existed since 2009 to accelerate this inclusive and sustainable transition. Yangambi, the town where she lives, was once home to an important agriculture research centre, surrounded by thousands of hectares of experimental plantations of rubber and oil palm, amongst other tropical commodities. These days, the land is mainly used by local farmers to grow subsistence crops such as cassava, but decades of overexploitation have depleted the soil and harvests are very poor.

The Coalition is leading a global campaign for the reform of the financial markets. Before that can happen, our political leaders and civil society must act together to break the dominance of the powerful financial industry lobby. A new positive momentum for a sustainable financial system is building as a response to the multiple and growing crises society is facing and in light of the SDGs and COP21.

Md Abul Bashar has good reasons to like the alternative bricks and blocks developed by the EU-funded SWITCH-Asia ‘Promoting Sustainable Building in Bangladesh’ (SusBuild) project. The raw material and production are greener than traditional burned clay bricks. They are made of dredged river sand, stone dust and a small percentage of cement, rather than agricultural top soil, and do not need coal or wood to dry.

The SusBuild project is engaged in contributing to the delivery of what Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka and other urban hubs urgently need: an option to cut air pollution and energy use from traditional brick kilns as well as reduce overall construction costs.

Air pollution in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city, is facing a public health crisis. However, the SWITCH-Asia Switch Off Air Pollution (SOAP) project aims to improve the situation by reducing coal consumption in the city’s ger district, as the use of coal for heating homes in these areas is the main source of the city’s air pollution.

Households living in the ger area are burning tons of coal every winter, creating 60% of all air pollution in the city of Ulaanbaatar, the coldest capital in the world.

For the last five months, Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been undergoing an unexpectedly rapid transformation thanks to an aggregated herd of about 580 African elephants that have crossed into the park from bordering Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park—and stuck around.

Together with the 120 or so elephants already in Virunga, this current group of elephants makes up at least 700 individuals. After decades of poaching across the continent, groups of this size are increasingly rare.

In the Rupununi savanah in Guyana, Asaph Wilson recalls how his grandfather used to see a lot of deer, a lot of armadillo, a lot of all kinds of animals but now they are gone. Roads, commercial hunting and uncontrolled fires are threatening wildlife of the savanah.

By developing ecotourism and conservation, by planting fruit trees to attract animals, Asaph's village is trying to gain back what was lost and is hoping that they can go back to their great grand-fathers time.

To make a healthier and more sustainable future a reality for everyone, our food systems must preserve the liveability of our planet. This is why we must produce and choose food free of fertilizers, and pesticides, while guaranteeing food security and the nutritional needs of the population. Initiatives like the EU SWITCH-Asia Bhoomi Ka network work towards this vision.

Bhoomi Ka’s mission is ambitious: transform food systems in India. The network provides support to small local producers assisting them in the cultivation of chemical-free food, favouring biodiversity and reducing the environmental impact of the crop.

Somalia is on a path to recover from decades of civil war and absence of state control. However, climate change poses one of the biggest challenges to the country’s stability. Droughts and floods have become increasingly frequent, with devastating effects.

The European Union aims to support the Somali youth through education and skills building, so they can contribute to the resilience of their society and develop solutions to their country’s pressing challenges that are exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Enelesi and Maria John have learned how to manage an intercropped field of maize, okra and tomatoes. The Phalombe Farm Field School in Malawi is where they learn about practices which increase resilience to climate change impacts.

Local farming communities work together at the farmer field school study plots where trainers like Beatrice Kapone demonstrate and facilitate how solar irrigation for land management works.

Some 1.6 billion people – one in every five people in the world – depend on forests for their food and livelihoods. But a growing global population needs more food and land – putting forests under increasing pressure and exacerbating inequality across tropical forest regions.

The European Union works with its partner countries around the world to boost sustainable and legal forest management, promote trade in legally produced timber, and prevent illegal products from reaching the EU. That’s why it established an Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade, known as FLEGT, in 2003.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing remains one of the greatest threats to sustainable fisheries, as well as the livelihoods of those who depend upon them. Good border management can help States maintain security, protect biodiversity, and promote small-scale fishers’ access to productive resources, services, and markets.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands has just 70 square miles of land mass surrounded by 750,000 square miles of ocean. Managing its borders is a mammoth task requiring sea patrols of hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean borders.

Tanzania's economy is very dependent on sectors affected by climate variability and change.

It is estimated that climate change will lead to large future additional economic costs ranging between 1% to 2% of GDP per year by 2030.

Strengthening capacities to cope with climate change impacts remains a priority, particularly in highly vulnerable sectors of critical importance such as agriculture.

Access to electricity is taken for granted in most high-income countries. It is easy to forget how vital a reliable power source is to ensuring access to health. In the world’s poorest regions, where the electricity network is patchy at best, and often non-existent, entire hospitals run on costly and polluting diesel generators.

Ensuring health facilities have an reliable power supply is critical to ensure good-quality healthcare. Because of fuel costs and frequent shortages, resorting to diesel generators is often not enough, and can lead to deadly power cuts.

In 2019, ElectriFI, the Electrification Financing Initiative invested €1.7 million in PowerGen, one of the leading electricity mini-grid developers in sub-Saharan Africa. The ElectriFI investment aims to help PowerGen connect more than 1 million people to reliable electricity by 2030.

Founded in 2011 in Kenya, the company has grown over the years from being a local contractor installing off-grid power systems for schools, refugee camps and tourist lodges to now being a market leader in microgrids.