CAREC’s workshop in Brussels
CAREC celebrates its 15th Anniversary on 20-24 June 2016. In this context, CAREC is holding a series of events and meetings with partners across the Central Asian region and beyond. In partnership with Vesalius college, CAREC held a workshop on the theme “Environment and Water in Central Asia: current state and cooperation opportunities” on the 4th of March 2016, in Brussels, Belgium that was another successful driver of CAREC’s cooperative efforts with EU partners. The event was held successfully with the participation of various EU partners, namely representatives of various Directorate-Generals of the European Commission and other organizations interested in Central Asian environmental matters.
The partners have exchanged ideas as to how to enhance cooperation in addressing dire environmental challenges Central Asia facing. EU partners were interested to know more about CAREC’s capacities in this regard and on specific projects, and highlighted ideas for the EU’s new programs for Central Asia that may unlock further collaboration potential between parties.
CAREC made a brief report summarizing its work for the past 15 years, outlining the current environmental issues of Central Asian countries. So far, apart from more than hundreds of projects, CAREC has initiated an environmental hub for exchanging best practices and ideas to solve the current ecological problems that was of interest to EU partners. One of the main features of this hub is that it serves as a multi-stakeholder platform for regional cooperation in accordance with national priorities while providing possibility for exchanging ideas and experiences with EU and other international partners.
In the course of this meeting, an enormous role of the European Union in CAREC’s history was highlighted – the European Commission is one of the founders of CAREC. Drawing from a long-standing cooperation, the sides expressed their willingness to re-enhance collaboration on environmental sustainability.
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