At COP16 in Riyadh, IDOS researchers actively contributed to key discussions on drought resilience and sustainable land management. Dr Michael Bruentrup co-chaired the UNCCD plenary and participated in official negotiations. The INTERFACES project co-organised an official side event on youth-driven innovation in land management.
©Michael Brüntrup
This year the UNCCD COP16 (2 – 13 December 2024) not only had a Blue Zone welcoming 3,500 Country Parties and Observers Country Participants, the doors were opened to another 10,000 Observer Participants hosting a wide range of side events and exhibitions in the Blue Zone and the newly established Green Zone – with a total of over 23,000 participants across the two weeks.
As the German representative to the Committee on Science and Technology of the UNCCD, IDOS researcher Dr Michael Bruentrup co-chaired the UNCCD Plenary session, where the ICCD/COP(16)20 Final Report by the Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought was presented and discussed. He also actively participated in the official negotiations of the Committee of the Whole (COW) contact group on drought and the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) contact group.
He has also participated as an invited panelist for the Global Green Growth Initiative (GGGI) on „Environmental Policies and Legislation to Combat Desertification“, for the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) on „Why Drought Resilience Matters for the Global Environment“, and for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on „Integrated Planning and Effective Institutional Coordination for Drought Management“.
Official Side Event on the role of Youth in Innovation
© Aiveen Donnelly
As part of the INTERFACES project, IDOS researcher Aiveen Donnelly together with Michael Bruentrup organised an official side-event together with the GEO-LDN Flagship with representation from the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Ghana, and the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH. The title of the side event was “Sustainable Land Management – the Role of Youth in Innovation” with a keynote from a scientific perspective by Samual Gameda from CIMMYT and a keynote from a youth perspective by Wilfrid Kingnide Adjimoti from YPARD. The live-streamed side event brought together an engaged audience sharing knowledge, experiences and desires to empower youth engagement in the entire process from research to innovation adoption for sustainable land management. With a call for action, the dialogue among the participants will continue in the production of, among others, a co-designed policy brief, which will be forthcoming.
INTERFACES and their activities are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the platform strategy Research for Sustainability (FONA). Further information on the project can be found on our website and on the FONA-Website.
