TAILORED TRAINING FOR TRAINERS OF THE SELECTED GRANTEES IN UNEP TOOLS AND APPROACHES

On 11-12 September, SIC ICWC held tailored training for trainers of the selected grantees in the UNEP training package for community environmental action planning. The training took place in the city of Osh, Kyrgyz Republic. This training was organized as part of the project “Facilitating region-specific approaches to addressing climate and environmental-related risks for peace and security” in Central Asia.

The aim of the training was to disseminate the adapted UNEP tools and approaches in the analysis of climate-related risks and work with local communities in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Trainers included Boris Gojenko and Alexandr Dolidudko from SIC ICWC, national project coordinator from the Kyrgyz Republic Mirzali Asatov, and gender and environmental expert from the Kyrgyz Republic Nurgul Sydykova.

Trainees were represented by three grantees who will implement sub-projects in the Kyrgyz Republic:

• OO “Central Asia Alliance for Water and Environment” (CAAWE)
• OO “New Rhyme”
• Consortium including OO “Ortchun” and OO “Independent environmental expertise”

The training was organized in the form of interactive discussions given that the UNEP approaches should be tailored to conditions of the Kyrgyz Republic.

As in the case of the training on 6th of September in Uzbekistan, this training included both theory and practical exercises.

The first day was dedicated to understanding of key concepts and terminology on climate change, social stability, and climate and stability linkages. Trainers presented the Strata platform developed jointly with FAO (unepstrata.org), showed cases of nature-based solutions from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The participants discussed how to mobilize local communities in adaptation planning and decision making and implement participative approaches.

During interactive discussions of the first day, all the participants stressed the project’s importance for socio-economic stability in the region and that environmental actions should be promoted through cooperation in environmental, water and adaptation spheres.

The second day was dedicated to practical exercises on joint problem analysis and brainstorming. The participants became aware of problem analysis tools, such as: connectors and dividers, problem and solution trees, seasonal calendar and linkage charts.

Besides problem analysis tools, the participants also were familiarized with decision making tools, such as feasibility matrix, prioritization matrix and analysis of scenarios.

In the course of practical exercises, adaptation methods were tested at the level of target regions in the Kyrgyz Republic, including:

• concepts and methods for collection of opinions on adaptation to changing climate and its effects at community level
• exercises in data and information collection and analysis at community level

During the training, participants actively discussed close linkage between climate, environment and socio-economic stability and approaches to identifying climate-related risks, adaptation, and nature-based solutions in priority regions and project areas.

By the end of the training, they had acquired the technical skills and knowledge needed to effectively implement and scale up project activities at the community level.