Adaptation at Altitude Regional Meeting: Taking Action Together for Resilient Mountain Communities in the South Caucasus

Summary

On Tuesday, December 14th 2021 the Caucasus Network for Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions (Sustainable Caucasus) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) organized the regional meeting “Adaptation at Altitude: Taking Action Together for Resilient Mountain Communities in the South Caucasus” with around 50 participants from across the region.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the successful online meeting, where partners presented the Adaptation at Altitude (A@A) programme and its milestones, relevant adaptation policies, and concrete adaptation solutions for mountain communities in the region.

Various stakeholders presented their experiences and solutions for mountain communities on the ground, special thanks go to the representatives from GIZ, CENN, UNDP, Red Cross Armenia, EWMI and IOM for sharing their insights of the adaptation solutions. MRI and Sustainable Caucasus presented their work on data, information, and monitoring for climate change adaptation in the South Caucasus.

Representatives from the Ministries of Environment (MoE) of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia updated attendees on relevant national adaptation plans and policies such as NAPs and NDCs. Mountain areas are prominently featured in the respective documents and mountain-specific aspects will continue to be discussed in the further elaboration of relevant plans and policies.

Discussions and consultations proceeded on a possible vision of regional dialogue and collaborative action, including next steps for developing a roadmap aimed at enhancement of dialogue for mountain climate change adaptation in the region.

In partnership with UNEP, Sustainable Caucasus is implementing the SDC-funded programme Adaptation at Altitude (A@A) in the South Caucasus region. The programme’s overall objective is to increase knowledge on climate change and appropriate adaptation solutions in the mountains and feed it into science-policy platforms for informed decision-making in national, regional, and global policy processes that will increase mountain communities’ and ecosystems’ resilience to climate change.

Presentations

This presentation by Sabine McCallum, Matthias Jurek, and Ansgar Fellendorf introduces the Adaptation at Altitude (A@A) programme, its activities in the South Caucasus to date, the identification of scalable solutions for the Caucasus, and next steps in this work.