More than 25 countries have to date expressed an interest in participating as a pilot country in the UN CC:Learn Pilot Projects to Strengthen Human Resources, Learning and Skills Development to Address Climate Change. With support provided by the Swiss Development Cooperation, UN CC:Learn will be in a position to support three countries in taking a strategic, long-term and results-oriented approach to climate change learning, taking into account national priorities and climate change objectives.
The projects will be implemented through a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder process and are scheduled to commence during the third quarter of 2011. Pilot countries will be selected by a Steering Group involving 23 UN agencies in early July. “An important aspect of the CC:Learn pilot projects is to foster the active participation of national educational and vocational training institutions with the goal to foster a sustainable approach to climate change learning”, says Achim Halpaap, Associate Director and Head of the Environment Unit at UNITAR, who heads the UN CC:Learn Secretariat. The projects therefore emphasize opportunities for engagement of domestic institutions so that climate change learning can be delivered through national learning institutions and systems in the long term, whenever possible.
A second important aspect of the CC:Learn pilot projects is the close collaboration with UN Country Teams and other development partners present at the country level. This collaboration will help to ensure that project activities are complementing other efforts in the area of climate change capacity building. The ultimate test will be if activities supported through CC:Learn can provide value added to ongoing capacity development activities by scaling up their human resource and skills development dimensions.
Given the high number of countries interested in participating as a CC:Learn pilot country and in light of the quality of applications received to date, funding to support additional pilot projects is being sought from interested donors. Governments that did not participate in the first round of applications, but that are interested in exploring opportunities to become a pilot country, are welcome to contact the CC:Learn Secretariat.
UN CC:Learn, the One UN Training Service Platform for Climate Change, is a collaborative initiative of 23 UN agencies, included in the “One UN Climate Action Framework” of the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) through its capacity development group co-convened by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Secretariat of CC:Learn is provided by UNITAR.
For further information about the CC:Learn pilot projects please visit: http://www.uncclearn.org/country-projects