UNEP’s next stages of work in Central Asia are taking shape in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) following key meetings taking place in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Ongoing rapid economic, technological and social changes offer a unique opportunity for sustainable development in Central Asia - in line with SDG goal 12 on encouraging responsible consumption. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan moved closer to a consensus on priority work to be carried out under the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns (10YFP) during a meeting on 23-24 November.

Cooperation was explored and priorities identified on sustainable buildings, public procurement and food systems among others, with the Head of the 10YFP Secretariat Charles Arden-Clark affirming that there is “huge potential to further strengthen implementation of the sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in the region”.

The event was attended by around 25 policymakers and civil society and business representatives and was partly funded by the EU and Switzerland. As the 10YFP Secretariat, UNEP co-hosted the meeting and will now draft a proposed plan of work based on priorities identified by countries.

In a separate event, Central Asian countries agreed that the Interstate Commission on Sustainable Development (ICSD) can be a platform for further work on sustainable development at global, regional and national levels.

National experts identified a number of ways for boosting cooperation on environmental and sustainable development issues through the platform. This includes improving its institutional and legal base – which UNEP is already supporting – and tweaking the its operational guidelines.

During the meeting, the experts also signalled strong interest to work on the SDGs and prepare for next June’s Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference, which will address air quality and Green Economy issues among other areas, as well as actively participate at the upcoming UN Environmental Assembly in May 2016.

The states are furthermore due to nominate experts to work on a Regional Waste Management Outlook to be released next Spring. The paper is one of the regional activities following up on a global report led by UNEP’s International Environmental Technology Centre in collaboration with the International Solid Waste Association.

For more information please contact natalia.alexeeva@unep.org

Following the UN’s adoption of new Sustainable Development Goals in September, the first regional forum has been held to support Latin American countries during their transition to becoming Green Economies.

Keynote speeches were delivered and a series of specialised courses made available to participants at the Regional Forum on Green Economy for Latin America, held between 2 and 6 November in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The forum was held under the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE), an initiative involving UNEP and four other UN branches set up following the Rio+20 conference to help 20 countries build Green Economy strategies.

The opening ceremony was led by the Colombian Minister of Labour, Luis Eduardo Garzón; Andean Region representative at the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Johannes Dobinger; and Philippe Vanhuynegem, Senior Specialist on Enterprises, Cooperatives and Rural Development at the ILO Country Office for the Andean Countries.

Of the seventeen SDGs recently adopted, “ten specifically deal with the concept of green economy - in particular Goal 8," Mr Dobinger underlined, referring to the goal related to promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

Meanwhile, Minister Garzón noted that the post-peace Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Colombian Government and the ILO is closely linked to the Green Economy due to the importance of the countryside. "A quarter of Colombian territory is rural, with problems of gender inequality in the labour market and young people abandoning the countryside", he stressed.

The Minister recalled that his country’s development plan for 2014–2018 includes a strategic focus on green growth, and revealed that his Ministry could seek support from PAGE to foster increased inter-ministerial work on the green economy, sustainable development and decent work.

For more information please write to chiara.moroni@unep.org

UNEP has held one of the first training workshops of its kind in Geneva on the resolution of land and natural resource conflicts in peacebuilding.

The event was held on 18 November as part of Geneva Peace Week and was organised together with the International Organisation for Migration, the UN Department of Political Affairs and Swisspeace.

The workshop brought together participants from a wide range of actors - including civil society, academia and the UN – and provided a unique platform for discussion on how the links between land and natural resource issues are dealt with by the international community and beyond.

The training also provided a brief introduction to conflict sensitivity in programming and the need to take this as a foundational approach when engaging in environments that are highly dynamic and prone to conflicts. Led by Sabina Handschin of Swisspeace, this section encouraged actors to reflect strongly on their own role and impact in conflict contexts. As she put it: “being active in a context means becoming part of a context”.

Senior Natural Resources Mediation Expert Michael Brown spoke in two separate sessions about mediating conflicts around natural resources, presenting the recently developed guide on natural resources and mediation produced by UNEP and UNDPA. He also delved into the complexities of land dispute resolution in peacebuilding.

During his session on Business and Peace, Andreas Graf of Swisspeace addressed corporate involvement in conflict, provoking discussion not only on how companies can be part of the problem but, importantly, how they can also be part of the solution and contribute positively to peacebuilding efforts.

The workshop offered an initial look at the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of these issues and participants stressed that they were keen to receive further training on the topic.

For more information on the workshop, or to express your interest in future events of this type, please contact amanda.kron@unep.org

The International Consortium of Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) has marked its fifth anniversary of providing much-needed tools and coordinated support for countries around the world to respond to the growing and changing threats to wildlife and livelihoods.

The ICCWC was founded in November 2010 in response to the upsurge in poaching of and trafficking in wildlife, as well as the involvement of organised crime groups and occasionally rebel militia in wildlife and forest crime.

Among the global alliance’s activities are providing teams of experts following wildlife incidents - for example in order to take DNA samples of illegal ivory when seized, as has been the case in Sri Lanka – as well as providing training on specialised investigation techniques, as has been provided in Bangladesh.

“The ICCWC is giving front line officers combating wildlife crime the ability to deploy the same tools and techniques used to combat other serious crimes, which is essential if we are to win this fight,” noted John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The CITES Secretariat makes up one of the five intergovernmental organisations joining forces together with Interpol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Customs Organisation. Its donors include the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the World Bank.

For more information please contact yuan.liu@unep.org