Lead Partner: Government of Italy - Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGCS)
Geographical Scope: Regional
- Asia and the Pacific Summary: General Objective: to contribute to social and economic development of the populations of the Hindu Kush - Karakorum - Himalaya mountain complex and to the environmental conservation of the region by consolidating institutional capacity for systemic planning and management of the territory, focusing on:
1. reduction of poverty
2. conservation of biodiversity
Specific Objective A: provide instruments (knowledge of the territory, the populations and the technologies for systemic data management) to facilitate the consistency of various national-level actions in area-based planning and management, within the framework of regional level systemic planning and monitoring.Specific Objective B: establish a process of application of the acquired capacities and Decision Support System (DSS) by individual countries in systemic planning and management of mountain areas at a local/national or transboundary level, within the framework of sustainable mountain development.Individual components of these objectives include:* Create a coordinated system for collection and analysis (monitoring) of natural resource data;* Provide decision makers of competent national and local administrations with an instrument (DSS) for systemic territorial planning and management;* Build local institutional capacity to study, analyze and manage natural resources, favoring local community involvement in these processes. [more]
Lead Partner: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: The Mountain Partnership is a voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to improving the well-being, livelihoods and opportunities of mountain people and the protection and stewardship of mountain environments around the world. The Mountain Partnership taps the wealth and diversity of resources, knowledge, skills and expertise of its members to support positive change in mountain areas. The Partnership was launched as a type-2 outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002: the basic concept and guiding principles of the Mountain Partnership resulted from a consultative process that took place during the preparatory sessions of the WSSD with its core document (known as the Bali Document) finalized at the Fourth Session of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Bali, Indonesia, 27 May - 7June 2002). Commitment to the Mountain Partnership has increased rapidly at the country, regional and international levels and concrete action is now underway to improve the lives of mountain people and protect mountain environments around the world. By March 2009, 50 countries, 16 intergovernmental organizations and 96 major group organizations (e.g. civil society, NGOs, private sector) had already joined the Mountain Partnership. A Mountain Partnership Secretariat, with financial support from the governments of Italy and Switzerland, is hosted at the central level by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Decentralized hubs of the secretariat have also been established in Latin America (hosted by CONDESAN), Asia Pacific (hosted by ICIMOD) and North America (hosted by the Banff Centre) and an Environmental Reference Centre is hosted by UNEP to provide guidance and support on environmental issues related to the Mountain Partnership.
The Mountain Partnership facilitates the effective and efficient implementation of Chapter 13, Agenda 21 and promotes, inter alia, joint initiatives based on paragraph 42 of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and other related instruments regarding mountains, by enhancing on-the-ground action and by working at the policy, programme and project levels. Specific partnership initiatives have been identified by members and are focussing on priority areas of action, such as biodiversity, education, gender, policy and law, research, sustainable livelihoods, sustainable agriculture and rural development in mountains (SARD-M) and watershed management. Additionally, geographically-focussed Initiatives have been launched and are operational in the Andes, Central Asia, Europe, the Hindu Kush Himalaya and other regions. New initiatives are developed as new priority areas are identified by members. Linkages between partnership initiatives are being encouraged at the local, national, regional and global levels, with members entering into specific initiatives according to their priorities, needs and capacities.
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Lead Partner: Government of Benin - Ministry of Planing, Beninese Centre for Sustainable Development (CBDD) - Government of Bhutan - Ministry of Finance, Sustainable Development Secretariat (SDS) - Government of Costa Rica - Ministry of Energy and Environment, Fundecooperation
Geographical Scope: Global Summary: To promote sustainable development on a south-south basis through long term partnership between Benin, Bhutan and Costa Rica by implementing Agenda 21, program for further implementation of Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of implementation based on the principles of equality, participation and reciprocity. Recognizing that lasting poverty alleviation will be achieved only in the context of sustainable development, the partnership will seek to catalyze the transition to sustainability by supporting innovation in the policies, seeding initiatives and replicating success stories. As the first step to translate the vision and objectives of the partnership into concrete projects, a program for south-south co-operation (PSC) was launched in May 2005. Biodiversity conservation, sustainable tourism, sustainable chains of production and consumption and sustainable energy are the key themes with gender equality as cross cutting issue. The partnership will be implemented through policy dialogues, consultation and participation of the multi-interest groups with focus on pilot and reciprocal projects. [more]