With support from the project partner World University Service Austria (WUS), the workshop GREEN TRANSITION – REGIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING NEEDS OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS served to collect inputs and  build upon expertise of CSO’s. Workshop program dealt with existing short trainings relevant to green transition, discussion of key green transition issues in each economy and discussion of the preparation of the life-long learning portfolio on Green Transition within EU4Green. Moreover, participants provided information and views on the providers of trainings, main user groups and main obstacles.

CSOs were enabled to express needs and contribute their specific experiences to deal with Green Transition in the Western Balkans region, to shape a common understanding of “Green Transition” and its components. Identification and mapping of ongoing training and education efforts allowed for the collection of topics and inputs to develop a basic educational module on “Green Transition” and to define important target groups. The program also allowed additional relevant information from the CSO expertise to be collected to support the implementation of EU4Green and the Green Education activities.

All participating CSO’s provided feedback on inputs from their colleagues in other economies. This approach provided an exceptional opportunity to exchange, learn and help each other to identify, discuss and generate basis for development of new learning modules.

Through this process it also became clear that economies are struggling with a lot of similar issues, such as the need for a better strategic approach to green transition, functioning rule of law, low capacity in institutions, but also dependence on coal as energy source and underdeveloped waste management. These valuable inputs will be taken into account in the development of modules and portfolios.

EU4Green is currently preparing the portfolio for waste water treatment plant operators and there is an ongoing exchange with thematic coordinators in the Western Balkans and municipalities in Albania  on their interest in Circular Economy (CE) training.
The pilot of the green transition portfolio is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2025.