News Archive
Poverty & Environment Events April - Dec 2005

"Train-the-Trainers" workshop on Integrated Ecosystem Assessment

See also: (i) More workshop photos (ii) Field trip photos  (iii)Field trip video clip

Representatives from all seven countries involved in the Poverty and Environment Project participated in a "Train-the-Trainers" course in integrated ecosystem assessment in Grahamstown, South Africa from 12-16 September. The course was taught by researchers who were involved in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and the participants, correspondingly, benefited from the MA's extensive experience of both global and sub-global assessments in various locations around the world and learned about the rich resource of relevant methods, tools and approaches for assessments that were employed by the MA. M ore specifically, participants were taught about the MA framework and how to apply it in practice. The latter included a field trip to Cathcartvale, a Xhosa village in the Eastern Cape, where participants analysed the links between ecosystem services and human well-being through the use of participatory rural appraisal methods and learned about the community's experiences with managing ecosystems to improve their livelihoods. Participants will now go back to their respective countries and train others in integrated ecosystem assessment. Some participants are also planning to do pilot assessments in their countries.

The Poverty-Environment Partnership (PEP) is an informal network of development agencies that aims to address key poverty-environment issues. The initial results of the PEP will be presented in two events, together called Environment for the MDGs, on 14 September in New York City - timed to coincide with the start of the 2005 World Summit. An afternoon policy dialogue will feature Nobel Laureates, high-level policymakers, private sector representatives and practitioners in two panel discussions that aim to stress the importance of the environment in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The head of state dinner is a major event on the Summit calendar designed to signal growing political support for a scaled-up role of the environment in achieving the MDGs.
PEP Events

Nairobi, May 16 2005 -- The Poverty and Environment Unit hosted a workshop on the Poverty and Environment Project in Nairobi from 10-12 May. The meeting brought together more than forty participants representing the seven project countries, the project's four partner institutes, UNDP, and various UNEP divisions. The workshop provided an excellent opportunity for project country representatives to share their experiences with the implementation of the Poverty and Environment Project to date and to present their requests for further support from the project's partner institutes. As part of the Poverty and Environment Project, the four partner institutes (IISD, CSC, SAfMA and WWF) are providing technical support in their area of expertise to project countries. The workshop began with presentations from the project countries in which they reviewed the implementation of the project in their respective countries and indicated support needs from UNEP and the institutes. These were followed on the second day by presentations given by the international institutes that explained how the institutes could support the project countries in response to their requests. The workshop concluded on the third day with working groups and a plenary session in which recommendations were made to UNEP on how it could extend its support to the project countries.
Workshop Summary & Recommendations

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