News

April 13, 2010 – Amman – In response to the need for integrating the major environmental - conventions and agreements into the national policy making process, the Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Jordan held an inception workshop to launch a new project on “Developing Policy-relevant Capacity for the Implementation of the Global Environmental Conventions in Jordan" at the Sheraton Hotel Amman, on April 13, 2010.

The project is the first capacity development project of this sort to be developed in the region. It was developed through a consultative process based on an analysis of the capacity constraints facing Jordan to implement the three Rio Conventions, namely, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification.
“The challenges of climate change, bio-diversity, and desertification are inter-linked in a number of ways and above all cannot be addressed by one nation alone. For this reason, there is a need to take global action by countries ratifying, implementing, and collaborating around international conventions”, said Mr. Luc Stevens, UNDP Resident Representative in Jordan, as he addressed participants in the workshop. He added, “At the country level, the challenges in addressing issues pertaining to climate change, desertification, and bio-diversity are complex, and there is a need to coordinate efforts at all levels and between different stakeholders if we are to maximize the impact of interventions at all levels – national, regional, and global. Policies for example, should be based on a scientific decision making process, and, as all the conventions stipulate, the principles and concepts of these conventions need to be integrated in the national policy making processes.”

The participants noted the importance to insure access to national information in all sectors and to make this information available to research institutions. The need to commit to national action plans on the medium and long term was indicated as paramount to insuring that the major environmental conventions were implemented.

The workshop aimed at bringing together key decision makers from key line ministries and representatives of universities, research centers, environmental NGOs and private sector to discuss challenges and opportunities for linking policy making and research. It allowed the participants to share views on the state of implementation of the global environmental conventions and capacity constraints in using research in related ¬¬-policy making.