On February 3, Nur-Sultan hosted CAREC NGO Day in Kazakhstan with financial support from the World Bank's “Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program for the Aral Sea Basin” (CAMP4ASB), dedicated to the first republican eco-gathering of social activists and volunteers of the country dedicated to addressing environmental issues, climate change and sustainable development.
The meeting was aimed at promoting opportunities for cooperation and partnership with environmental public organizations of Kazakhstan in the field of environmental protection, climate change and sustainable development, raising awareness of civil society organizations about the results of CAREC activities in Kazakhstan, Central Asia in 2019 and future cooperation opportunities.
The event was opened by Svetlana Mogilyuk, the Chairperson of the Public Association “Ekom”, the Chairperson of “Association of Civil Alliance of the Pavlodar Region” and the CAREC Board of the Governors in Kazakhstan from NGO, who expressed gratitude to CAREC for organizing the meeting and made a brief introduction of the goals and objectives of the meeting.
Vadim Ni, an expert of the CAMP4ASB project, presented a vision of interaction with NGOs and the media within the framework of created Regional Network of Civil Society Organizations on Climate Change (RNCSOCC), financed by the World Bank under the CAMP4ASB project. RNCSOCC is organized on the basis of national climate networks, the national coordinators of which are: the Ecoforum of Kazakhstan NGOs, the Climate Network of Kyrgyzstan, the Climate Network of Tajikistan, the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Turkmenistan and the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan. The speaker presented the work plan of the RNCSOCC, a report on the measures taken was made, and plans for 2020 were announced. In 2019, the national coordinators of the regional network took part in conferences and trainings on the CAREC regional platforms (CAIEF, CACCC and CALP), made an important contribution to CACCC-2019 in Tashkent, and pilot projects on renewable energy in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were carried out. As part of the CAMP4ASB project, regional and national media trainings were held with journalists in Kazakhstan and regular outreach activities with NGOs and support for the regional network are carried out.
Shynar Toilybaeyva, CAREC Country Director in Kazakhstan, presented CAREC's vision for engaging and collaborating with NGOs and the opportunities that exist within CAREC platforms. “CAREC has been developing cooperation with environmental public organizations in Central Asia since its inception, and cooperation schemes vary depending on existing opportunities, donor priorities and the availability of projects supporting public organizations as a target group.”
Tatyana Shakirova, Manager of the Education for Sustainable Development Program, made a presentation on the activities of CAREC with NGOs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and, including, implemented as part of subcomponent 1.7. “Outreach” of the World Bank project CAMP4ASB. The presentation reflected the main CAREC projects supporting the Central Asian NGOs, and presented the opportunities for NGOs to collaborate in the framework of this project subcomponent and CACCC, which will be held in Dushanbe on June 16-17, 2020. She noted the need for mutual information, exchange of experience, pooling of resources, expertise and opportunities to strengthen CAREC cooperation with public organizations and government bodies of Central Asian countries.
Then, Svetlana Mogilyuk, Member of Board Governors of CAREC, made a presentation on strengthening the cooperation of CAREC with NGOs, emphasizing the importance of assessing the success of activities through the implementation of performance indicators (KPI).
The issues of developing the Concept of interaction with NGOs for 2020-2025, the activities of the Central Asian NGO Network on Climate Change and the participation of civil society organizations at CACCC in Dushanbe, June 2020 were discussed. Kazakhstan NGOs voiced several priority areas for cooperation between CAREC and NGOs: “The first direction: floods, floods (ES) in the context of the problems of adaptation and mitigation to climate change in Northern Kazakhstan; the second: landscaping and reducing the impact on the climate (sustainable cities), and the national and the third: transboundary EIA (environmental assessment), etc. ”
The meeting participants agreed to strengthen mutual information activities, including through the creation and exchange of information in groups on social networks, etc.
Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program for Aral Sea Basin or CAMP4ASB is implemented by CAREC and financed by the World Bank. Project aims to enhance regionally coordinated access to improved climate change knowledge services for key stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, communities, and civil society) in participating Central Asian countries as well as to increased investments and capacity building that, combined, will address climate challenges common to these countries.CAMP4ASB is implemented in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan during the period from 2016 to 2021.
