Ethiopia: One of The Greenest Countries

According to the newest edition of the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI), Ethiopia is viewed as having significant opportunities for improved green country branding

The report, released on Monday, compares how 60 different countries and 70 cities perform in the green economy.

In the country comparisons, Sweden and Germany took top honors for country performance and perception, respectively. Ethiopia had the 37^th-highest perception rank and was number 26 in performance. GGEI survey respondents ranked the nation among the top markets for green investments.

The results from the 2014 Global Green Economy Index reveal a wide range of insights relevant to policy makers in the governments being measured, as well as international organizations, civil society and private actors interacting with them. This new edition of the GGEI confirms what had already been established in previous editions: Germany and a block of Nordic countries continue to dominate this Global Green Economy Index, both in terms of performance and perceptions of that performance by expert practitioners.

Beyond these impressive results, some compelling findings emerge through this latest edition, in part due to the greater diversity of countries covered and an updated methodology and data structure providing greater sector focus and integration of environment & natural capital. Covered for the first time, Costa Rica records an impressive result, ranking 3rd behind Sweden and Norway on performance and in the top 15 for perceptions overall, a notable accomplishment for such a small country. Other Latin American countries – including Colombia, Peru and Chile – also perform well in their first time being covered on the GGEI, although this performance is not yet recognized in a meaningful way through the perception survey.

These new results also reveal some vivid examples of countries where performance clearly exceeds perceptions of it, signaling significant opportunities for improved green country branding and strategic communications. Five European countries – Austria, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – clearly fall in this category.

A similar observation emerges for a variety of other countries – most notably the African states of Ethiopia, Mauritius, Rwanda and Zambia – all covered for the first time on this year’s GGEI. In these cases, global audiences simply aren’t registering the green merits of these states or country competitors are overshadowing them with a more strategic approach to communications and information exchange.

A red flag from this year’s GGEI results is that few of the fastest growing economies in the world rank very well in the GGEI performance measure or on the perception survey, reinforcing the importance of mainstreaming the green economy concept further so it can be better integrated to policy formulation in these markets. While doing quite well in terms of perception, China ranks near the bottom of the performance measure, driven by its poor performance on Efficiency Sectors and Environment & Natural Capital. But this problem extends beyond China: rapidly growing countries in Africa (Ghana), the Gulf (Qatar, United Arab Emirates), and Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam) rank poorly on the GGEI performance measure.

These overall findings only tell part of the story, and the following pages present a brief snapshot of the results for the 60 nations covered on the GGEI as they play out on the four main dimensions: Leadership & Climate Change, Efficiency Sectors, Markets & Investment and Environment & Natural Capital. Our goal is to become the leading benchmark for countries to track their performance in the green economy over time and how experts assess it. The following pages serve as an entry point for deeper engagement with the GGEI data and associated consulting services to address more country or firm-specific challenges.

Ethiopia’s overall performance on the GGEI exceeds how experts perceive it, suggesting an opportunity for more targeted communications from leadership there. Ethiopia tops the performance rankings on the Leadership & Climate Change dimension, driven by the relatively low carbon intensity of its economy and national efforts to promote green measures through its Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy. Given its high GDP growth rate at the moment, Ethiopia should work on its performance in the Markets & Investment dimension and better articulate to investors the green investment opportunities there. It will also be critical to ensure that its carbon intensity remains low as development proceeds in efficiency sectors like buildings.

The full report can be viewed here. 

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