News

Mountain Partnership members meet in Kyrgyzstan

25.06.2018

The Mountain Societies Research Institute of the University of Central Asia (MSRI\UCA) hosted a meeting of Mountain Partnership members in Central Asia on 22 June 2018. Representatives of MSRI, Aigine Cultural Research Center, PF EKOIS, Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy Public Fund (ISDS), Federation of Organic Development BIO-KG (FOD Bio-KG), Association of forest and land users of Kyrgyzstan (AFLU Kyrgztan), Alliance of Central Asian Mountain Communities (AGOCA) and Research Institute Central Asian Institute of Applied Geosciences (CAIAG) took part in the meeting.

The agenda of the meeting included the report on the Mountain Partnership Steering Committee meeting in Rome, Italy in April and the upcoming World Mountain Forum to be held in Kyrgyzstan on 23-26 October 2018.

Anara Alymkulova, head of the Institute for Sustainable Development Strategy Public Fund, who represents the Central Asia in the Steering Committee of the Mountain Partnership, shared the information about the MP Steering Committee on 23-24 April 2018 at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy. This was the second meeting of the Steering Committee after its election at the Fifth Global Meeting of the Mountain Partnership in December 2017. Main items discussed included the Framework for Action and its implementation, the 2018 and 2019 event planning calendar, the 2018 work plan of the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, governance issues and resource mobilization.

The meeting was chaired by Grammenos Mastrojeni of the Government of Italy, with support from the Steering Committee vice chairs Gobinda Bahadur Shahi of the Karnali Integrated Rural Development and Research Centre and Musonda Mumba of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) . The Steering Committee’s fruitful discussions during the one and a half day meeting provided guidance to the Mountain Partnership Secretariat’s work and priority setting. Several Steering Committee members proposed to form working groups on communication, advocacy and resource mobilization to advance the mountain agenda. Among the decisions taken, it was endorsed that the theme of International Mountain Day 2018 should be “#MountainsMatter”, to ensure that mountains and the role they play in providing key ecosystem goods and services are not forgotten.

Pakiza Shirinova, MSRI\UCA Conference manager for the World Mountain Forum 2018, took the opportunity to meet Mountain Partnership members to discuss their possible inputs into the work of the World Mountain Forum 2018, to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 23 - 26 October 2018.

‘Mountains in a Changing World: Strengthening Partnerships and Pathways towards a Thriving Mountain Future’ will bring together the global Sustainable Mountain Development community and enable strategic and timely dialogue on some of the most pertinent development. This Forum is the fourth in a series of World Mountain Forum (WMF) events, realized with support from the Government of Switzerland, University of Central Asia, Aga Khan Foundation, and the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic who will be hosting the event.

The main themes for the WMF 2018 are ‘Climate Change, Water and Energy”, “Poverty, Food Systems, and Agrobiodiversity”, “Resilience and transformation of mountain socio-ecological systems” and “Investing in mountains - enabling the future”.

Currently, MSRI\UCA is busy with preparatory work for the WMF2018 and there is great interest from a number of development agencies, international and regional networks to participate in such an important event of the year.

News and Photo by The Mountain Societies Research Institute/Alma Uzbekova