The 3-rd Central Asian Leadership Programme on Environment for Sustainable Development

The Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia (CAREC) in cooperation and with the support of United Nations Environment Program UNEP, Government of Norway and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) from 17th to 28th September, 2012 conducted a Third Central Asian Leadership Programme.

The 9-day Programme was designed for emerging leaders and professionals from government, private sector and civil society across Central Asia. In addition to a number of interesting presentations from leading experts in the field of environment and sustainable development, participants had field sessions, open discussions and laboratory experiments.

During the Leadership Program, participants visited:
• Central Asian International Exhibition and Conference “Cooperation Mechanisms for transition to sustainable development and” green “growth. From Strategy to Practice “- 19-21 September 2012,” Atakent “, Almaty, Kazakhstan
• Seminar-Workshop on the construction of slip-straw homes – 23 September 2012, country seat “Alma-Ray”, 30 km from Almaty.

Participants had unique opportunity to acquire new knowledge in the field of environmental management and sustainable development issues, as well as a chance to grasp the importance of the idea of unification with the government, private sector and civil society to achieve a common goal – sustainable development in Central Asia. Particular attention also paid to the management of water resources, access to drinking water and water of transboundary cooperation.

The program was being held for the third year, and aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the issues of sustainable development in the context of global challenges and the needs and priorities of the Central Asia. The program was based on interactive sessions, and integrated three dimensions: people, environment and sustainable development. It should be noted that this year for the firts time the Programme attended 28 young leaders from all five Central Asian countries.

The main purpose of the Third Asian Leadership Program was to foster comprehensive thinking and decision making in order to integrate environmental and sustainable development issues among government, private sector, civil society and young professionals.