The UN and UNDP in Brussels

A joint UN-EC pilot training course on the challenges of climate change for North Africa and the Middle East region will be held in Cairo on 27-28 September 2009. The workshop will bring together UN Resident Coordinators and EC Heads of Delegation from the 17 states of the region (Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Republic of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates) plus the Palestinian Authority.

The origins of this initiative lie in the 2008 high level review of the UNDP-EC Strategic Partnership Agreement, which highlighted the nexus between climate change and development as a vital new issue for the partnership. Joint EC-UN training on this topic was therefore seen as an important tool which would contribute to building a common vision on this important topic and to fostering a closer inter-institutional relationship at the country level, and which would also strengthen the capacity of senior EC and UN country-based staff to engage in this critical area. The North Africa and Middle East region has been chosen for the pilot mainly because of its vulnerability in terms of climate change and because of the potential within the region for increased cooperation between the EC and UNDP at country level.

The training course has been jointly organized by five EC Directorates (Administration, Environment, External Relations, Development and Europe Aid) and two UN programmes, UNDP and UNEP. The Environmental Finance Team of UNDP/Environment and Energy Group has played a lead role in the substantive preparation of the workshop, in coordination with EC and UNEP experts. Three training modules have been developed which provide an overview of the current challenges of climate change, the options to address climate change and the EC/UN responses to climate change in the region.

Useful documents and links:

Agenda and supporting documents

• Climate change training objectives, messages and expected outcome
• Climate change training agenda
• Climate change training overview (Power Point presentation)

Background papers

• 'Charting A New Low-Carbon Route To Development: a Primer on Integrated Climate Change Planning for Regional Governments' (UNDP, 22nd September 2009)
• Arab Human Development Report 2009: 'Challenges to human security in the Arab countries'
• Human Development Report 2007/2008: 'Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world'
• 'Climate change at UNDP: scaling up to meet the challenge' (UNDP Environment and Energy Group)
• 'The Bali Road Map: key issues under negotiation' (UNDP Environment and Energy Group)
• UNEP Year Book 2009
• 'Climate in peril: a popular guide to the latest IPCC reports' (UNEP, 2009)
• 'The natural fix? The role of ecosystems in climate mitigation' (UNEP, 2009)
• 'Towards low carbon and carbon change resilient territories: a common partnership between United Nations and Associations of Regions' (UNDP, UNEP, NRG4SD, CPMR, NF, AIRF, AER, OLAGI, FOGAR, THE CLIMATE GROUP)

Links

• The UN and climate change
• UNDP's energy and environment practice area
• UNDP's work on climate change
• The Global Environment Facility
• UNEP and climate change
• EC climate change campaign
• EC DG External Relations' work on climate change
• EC DG Development's work on climate change
• EC DG EuropeAid's work on climate change