Global Bioenergy Partnership Annual Wrap-Up

(Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) ... 2023 was an important year for GBEP, as it was the first time that Partners and Observers met in person for the governance meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a chance to celebrate the achievements of the last 17 years of the Partnership, and its growing membership, as the total number of members reached 90 this year with the engagement of Nigeria, UN-ESCAP, UNSD, World Bioenergy Association and World Biogas Association as Observers. GBEP also welcomed Argentina and Italy as the new co-chairs for the 2023-24 biennium, taking over the important role of leading the Partnership from Brazil and the United States.

This year was also the year that the communications approach of GBEP was re-invigorated in order to enhance GBEP’s visibility and outreach, with fresh harmonized branding of all communications, a new, more user-friendly GBEP website, and a greater social media presence.

The 10th Bioenergy Week, the GBEP flagship event, was held this year in Thailand from 24 to 27 October and focused on Asia and the Pacific, where bioenergy is a key component for meeting soaring energy demand while achieving net-zero targets.

The event was the opportunity to discuss all forms of bioenergy – solid, liquid and gaseous biofuels – as well as delve into specific topics, such as ethanol for clean cooking. This latter thematic area is the focus of a new FAO/GBEP project financed by USDA-FAS on facilitating and enhancing the dialogues across sectors for the adoption of sustainable bioenergy, with a primary focus on ethanol for clean cooking in African and Asian markets. The session at the 10th GBEP Bioenergy Week was the first activity of the project, and brought together stakeholders to discuss benefits of ethanol’s use as a fuel and the steps needed for its uptake for clean cooking. The informal group within GBEP on linkages between bioenergy, food security and nutrition, is further amplifying the importance of the topic and expanding the activities of this project with related articles and initiatives. The group will also be considering the bioenergy-nutrition nexus more broadly, by investigating good practices across bioenergy value chains that could positively impact nutrition security.

Preparations are already underway for the 11th Bioenergy Week, which for the first time, will take a global perspective on bioenergy, bringing together stakeholders from all over the world to share knowledge and experience.

The conference will also include an entire day dedicated to youth, as part of the ongoing commitment of GBEP to involve and empower youth in bioenergy topics. The new GBEP Bioenergy Youth Day 2024 will be organized in cooperation with the Youth and United Nations Global Alliance (YUNGA) and will encompass both educative and training activities on sustainable bioenergy, with a focus on innovations and technologies. The activities will be targeted to students of various age groups, with a Bioenergy Discovery Circuit for high school students aged 11-15 and Bioenergy lectures given by global academic experts for master’s and PhD students. The GBEP Bioenergy Youth Day 2024 will also be the opportunity to present the 2024 GBEP Youth Award.

The newly announced GBEP Bioenergy Youth Day is just one of the GBEP activities to empower youth involvement in the bioenergy sector and foster a just energy transition.

Since 2021, the annual Bioenergy Week has been an opportunity to announce the winner of the GBEP Youth Award and allow the winning student to present their research to a unique platform of key bioenergy stakeholders and experts.

The BIKE project was a three-year Horizon 2020 project that concluded in August 2023 with the aim to support the implementation of the RED II of the EC by providing evidence, measuring and widely disseminating the market potential of low-ILUC risk value chains for biomass, biofuels and bioliquids in Europe. FAO, as a consortium member, developed the sustainability assessment framework for the project and applied it to four case studies. The interesting results of these assessments can be found on the BIKE website.

In 2024, as well as the flagship Bioenergy Week conference, GBEP has many other important workstreams under which it will be conducting technical activities and events.

Capacity building webinars will continue under the main thematic areas of biogas and advanced liquid biofuels. Canada and FAO, as the co-leaders of the activity group on wood energy, will be spearheading the work of GBEP on carbon accounting for wood energy in 2024, with various online capacity building workshops on data and methodologies. Specialised technical meetings and workshops will also take place on the sustainability of bioenergy within the broader bioeconomy.

Another focus for the partnership in 2024 will be on clean cooking and its contribution to food and nutrition security. Under a new project financed by USDA-FAS, in 2024, GBEP will organize two national dialogues, one in Rwanda and one in Uganda, with the aim to facilitate cross-sectoral dialogues on sustainable bioenergy for clean cooking, with a focus on bioethanol fuel and related technologies. The project seeks to increase understanding, awareness, and adoption of ethanol for clean cooking to replace traditional cooking fuels (e.g. fuelwood, charcoal, LPG) in the region and to highlight the importance of adopting standards for ensuring the high quality and safety of both ethanol fuel and related cookstoves. READ MORE