With the generous support of the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Indonesia and Malawi will join Benin, Uganda and the Dominican Republic as the fourth and fifth pilot country to start a UN CC: Learn project in 2011. The five countries were selected by the UN CC: Learn Steering Group in July 2011 from among 23 countries who had submitted an application to participate in the UN CC: Learn Pilot Implementation Phase, 2011-2013. UN CC: Learn is a One UN initiative on climate change learning for which UNITAR is providing the Secretariat.

“The large number of high quality country applications prepared through multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration encouraged SDC to increase support to the UN CC: Learn Pilot Implementation Phase” said Anton Hilber, Co-director of SDC’s Global Climate Change Programme. “Of particular importance is that educational and vocational institutions will play an important role in project implementation, creating capacity within countries to deliver their own climate change learning activities in the long-term”, Hilber continued.

UN CC: Learn supports Member States in designing and implementing results-oriented and sustainable learning to address climate change through collaboration involving UN agencies and other development partners. UN CC: Learn is included in the "One UN Climate Change Action Framework" of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) through the High Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP).

The UN CC: Learn pilot projects aim at supporting countries in taking a strategic and long-term approach to climate change learning with the ultimate goal to mainstream climate change learning within existing learning system. They are directly linked to, and make a contribution to the implementation of Article 6 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UNFCCC Capacity Development Framework. They also apply the core principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which emphasize country ownership, empowerment of national institutions, and alignment of support by development partners.

For further information please contact uncclearn@unitar.org or visit www.uncclearn.org.