Green fiscal policies can help make public expenditures more efficient. This is key as the world strives to ‘build back better’ after the COVID-19 pandemic. This course introduces participants to the fiscal policy instruments and reform strategies available to policymakers to transition to a green economy.

 

“I love the course. It touches the real-life activities” – Learner from Ecuador

Enroll
  • Green Economy
  • Cities
  • Finance
  • Energy

Self-paced course

2 hours

Welcome

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many fragilities of our economies and deepened existing inequalities and imbalances. However, long before the pandemic hit nations across the world, many economies were marked by harmful and inefficient use of public and private resources, reinforcing environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, global warming and vulnerabilities linked to health and social exclusion. In the wake of the health and economic crisis, citizens are increasingly demanding a departure from business-as-usual approaches in favour of truly innovative and green policies. Similarly, many governments recognize that the transformative potential of this circumstance must not be wasted.

Greening recovery efforts can help nations build forward better after the pandemic to increase the well-being of people and resilience of countries to future crises. Green fiscal policies in particular can play a key role in countries’ recovery efforts by removing inefficiencies in public expenditures and raising additional fiscal revenues which can be directed towards immediate COVID-19 relief measures while supporting longer-term investments.  While this course was developed prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, its contents therefore remain relevant to current policy discussions.

One practical challenge lies in ensuring that countries are both aware of these opportunities and that they possess the knowledge and skills to take advantage of them. To address this challenge, the course sets out to provide interested participants from government, business, and civil society with an introduction to the green fiscal policy tools and approaches to foster a more sustainable future

If you encounter any difficulty or if you have any questions, please consult our help page.

What will you learn?

Participants completing the course will be able to:

  • Explain the rationale for greater use of green fiscal policy
  • List different fiscal instruments to promote desirable economic, social and environmental outcomes
  • Describe the key stages of the policy cycle
  • Highlight the main opportunities and challenges presented by the energy, transport and waste management sectors
  • Outline how international collaboration enhances fiscal policy action taken at the national level

Course structure at a glance

The course aims to provide participants with a solid understanding of fiscal policy instruments and reform strategies available to policymakers to advance the green economy transition. It contains five lessons, each taking approximately 20 minutes to complete:

  1. The need for green fiscal policy
  2. Fiscal instruments for greening the economy
  3. Effective strategies for fiscal reform
  4. Applying green fiscal policy in key sectors
  5. Collaborating for impact

Get a certificate!

A final quiz composed of ten multiple choice questions serves to assess learners’ achievement of the course’s learning objectives. The quiz can be taken at any time and attempted up to three times. Learners need to pass the quiz with a score of at least 70%. Once the quiz is successfully passed, a Certificate of Completion will be available for download on the course’s Certification page.

Partners

This course has been developed under the umbrella of the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE). PAGE brings together five UN agencies – UN EnvironmentInternational Labour OrganizationUN Development ProgrammeUN Industrial Development Organization, and UN Institute for Training and Research – whose mandates, expertises and networks combined can offer integrated and holistic support to countries on inclusive green economy.