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The Aral Sea in Central Asia, once the world’s fourth-largest inland water body, has almost disappeared due to the overuse of its resources and the climate crisis, endangering the livelihoods of 40 million people who live in the region.

The Global Disruptive Tech Challenge 2021 aims to identify and support disruptive technologies and innovative approaches to landscape restoration in the Aral Sea region and Central Asia. The Challenge asks innovators from around the world to submit their ideas and help change the lives of millions of people.

The Q&A session, held on 21 December, at 6 p.m. Almaty time (UTC+6), is an opportunity to learn more about the Challenge, connect with world leading institutions and regional organizations and universities, and get your questions on the Challenge answered.

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Всемирный конкурс прорывных технологий 2021

Аральское море, расположенное на территории Центральной Азии, когда-то четвертое среди крупнейших внутренних водоемов, сегодня почти исчезло из-за чрезмерного использования его ресурсов и изменения климата, поставив под угрозу жизнеобеспечение 40 миллионов человек, проживающих в этом регионе.

Всемирный конкурс прорывных технологий 2021 направлен на выявление и поддержку прорывных технологий и инновационных подходов в сфере восстановления земель в регионе Аральского моря и на территории Центральной Азии. Конкурс приглашает инноваторов со всего мира предложить идею и помочь изменить жизнь миллионов людей.

Сессия “Вопросов и ответов”, которая пройдет 21 декабря в 18:00 по алматинскому времени (UTC+6) – это возможность не только узнать больше о Конкурсе и получить ответы на интересующие Вас вопросы, но и наладить связь с ведущими мировыми институтами и региональными организациями и университетами.

The International Mountain Day (IMD) is celebrated annually on 11 December to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development, and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.

The theme for this year’s IMD is “Mountain biodiversity”. Mountains are storehouses of global biodiversity. Half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in mountains, and four of those hotspots lie in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. This IMD, we celebrate the rich biodiversity in mountains and call attention to the threats it faces.

ICIMOD will be organizing a week-long event – a “week for mountains” – to celebrate this important day by organizing various programmes in-house and in its country offices.

Find out more here

As a follow up from the FTA 2020 Science Conference, FTA and its managing partners are now developing a series of open webinars, extracting the highlights from the conference and bringing them to the public. The aim is to inform and support concrete action on the ground with a focus on transformative science derived from FTA’s most innovative lines of research.

The CGIAR research program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development. Innovative finance is one of FTA’s key Operational Priorities, led by Tropenbos International (TBI), one of its managing partners.

On the 26^th of November, FTA and TBI are proud to launch and present their latest report on Innovative Finance for Sustainable Landscapes.

This milestone publication, developed through extensive open consultations and cutting-edge collaborative methods, explores the complex barriers that hinder the potential of external finance to increase sustainability of tropical landscapes and achieve positive impact at scale. A selection of most promising financial innovations and schemes are identified and discussed and pathways to alleviate these barriers are proposed. These findings result from a participatory process with strong engagement from the Civil Society and the Private Sector. The outcomes of the report were recently reviewed at the FTA Science Conference.

In the occasion of the launch of the report, FTA and TBI would like to invite everyone to an open webinar to illustrate some of the key findings and open questions that the study reveals, as well as what are the future areas of collaborations for implementing innovative finance.

The discussion will bring together perspectives from different stakeholders and donors, and will allow ample time for question and answer sessions from the audience.

Join us in our efforts to understand and overcome barriers to access to finance!

Find out more

ThinkForest is a European high-level forum on the future of forests. It provides:

A unique science-policy interface
Inspiring and dynamic science-policy dialogue

ThinkForest works to identify information needs related to forest policy questions and build a common understanding of the problems at hand. By helping policy makers navigate through the wealth of information on offer and providing them with the best available expertise and the latest research-based information from the scientific community it enables informed decision making on strategic forest issues.

The ThinkForest forum brings together policymakers, the scientific community and stakeholders, offering a space for science-policy dialogue which builds bridges on pan-European forest and bioeconomy issues. It is chaired by Janez Potočnik, former EU Commissioner for both Science and Research, and Environment. From its foundation in 2012 until June 2019, it was chaired by former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson.

Find more information here.

Every three years, our emblematic Organic World Congress (OWC) is held in conjunction with our General Assembly, involving thousands of organic farmers, producers, researchers, advocates and policy experts from around the world. By rotating across countries, the OWC brings global visibility to the host country.

Find out more.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have established an action-oriented partnership to accelerate the pace of RE adoption for strengthening economic value chains and developing resilient enterprises in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region. The partnership aims to leverage the two institutions’ expertise and strong buy-in from governments as intergovernmental organizations. Within the framework of this partnership, ICIMOD and IRENA are conducting a comprehensive scoping exercise to analyse energy needs and gaps in selected key economic value chains in the HKH region and the opportunities offered by RE solutions. The scoping exercise further identifies actions needed for scaling up the use of RE and energy efficiency (EE) solutions.

Cost-competitive renewable energy solutions, coupled with their modularity and adaptability, provide a unique opportunity to reconcile energy, socio-economic development and climate objectives in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region. Renewables could significantly contribute to improving livelihoods and well-being of mountain communities by providing access to reliable, affordable and environmentally-sustainable energy, while also strengthening local enterprises and climate resilience.

To share the preliminary findings of the assessment and gather feedback, IRENA and ICIMOD jointly organized a consultative workshop on “Renewable energy solutions for enterprise development in the Hindu Kush Himalaya” on 20 November 2019 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The workshop convened over 50 experts mainly comprising the three major stakeholder groups needed to deploy RE solutions at speed and scale across the HKH region: local enterprises; policy makers; and enablers such as financing institutions, development agencies, and foundations.

Find out more here.