Desertification, land degradation and drought are major environmental threats with serious impacts on human well-being© Mike Vam
Desertification: JRC-IES nominated UNCCD Regional Reference Center
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has established 15 Reference Centres worldwide on the basis of their recognised experience in desertification and land degradation issues. This is done in order to implement country reporting guidelines and development activities for a new indicator-based monitoring and assessment process at regional, sub-regional and national levels. The DESERT Action at the JRC Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) was nominated as one of these Reference Centres. As such, it provides assistance to the countries of the UNCCD regional annexes for the Northern Mediterranean (Annex IV), Central and Eastern Europe (Annex V) and other affected country Parties (e.g. USA, Canada, Hungary).
As part of its Reference Centre activities, the IES provided two training sessions in Brussels during June. The first two-day training session on the new indicator-based reporting system was attended by 48 participants representing UNCCD National Focal Points from 20 countries, covering the Northern Mediterranean as well as Central and Eastern Europe. A further training session was attended by 25 participants from 11 donor countries, as well as the Regional Desk Officer of the UNCCD, representatives from the Global Mechanism and the project coordinator of the PRAIS (Performance Review and Assessment of Implementation System) project, who coordinates the activities of all Reference Centres on behalf of the UNCCD Secretariat.
The DESERT Action at JRC-IES is engaged to join forces with the international scientific community in order to provide scientific support to and develop adequate tools for the implementation of policies and conventions related to drought and desertification in Europe and worldwide.
12/08/10