Environment and climate change
Climate change
Following up on the conference "Climate Change, a New Challenge for Development Cooperation?" held in March 2008, on 10 September 2008 the climate expert Professor Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele submitted a report with recommendations to DGD entitled “Climate change and the Belgian development cooperation policy: Challenges and opportunities”.
>> Read the report (PDF, 1.06 MB)
DGD is currently exploring several avenues for integrating climate change into the various domains of development cooperation work (bilateral, multilateral and indirect) and for applying them in the various phases of cooperation agreements (at the policy level and re identification, wording, follow-up and evaluation work). A platform of researchers from a range of scientific institutions (KLIMOS) will carry out strategic basic research to underpin policy and boost the capacity of Belgian Development Cooperation and its partners in the South to take effective action with regard to climate change, climate mitigation and climate adaptation.
KLIMOS Policy brief 1: The undervalued role of ecosystem carbon in climate change mitigation (PDF, 324.58 Kb)
KLIMOS Policy brief 2: Dryland areas, forgotten by REDD? (PDF, 1007.64 Kb)
Information sheet on Fast Start Finance (PDF, 34.92 Kb)
Biodiversity
In 2002, the international meeting held in connection with the United Nations Treaty on Biodiversity decided to take steps to significantly curb the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Belgium is supporting TEMATEA, a project backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that helps countries apply international agreements regarding the protection of biodiversity. www.tematea.org
The theme of the 2010 Belgian Development Cooperation Prize is “Biodiversity and Environment”. 18 projects by students from Belgian Development Cooperation’s partner countries and 20 by Belgian students have been put forward for final judging by the jury.
In the context of the Federal Sustainable Development Plan, DGD is helping to devise the action plan for protecting biodiversity.
Desertification
In January 2009, the University of Ghent and DGD organised a conference on desertification where Belgian experts presented recent research findings and their experiences from projects in the field.
“Combating Desertification (PDF, 5.49 MB)”