On 18 October, UNEP and Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) launched a new GEF project to help government institutions implement multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and build technical and scientific know-how at national and provincial levels.

The Afghan government has made great strides joining global efforts to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change, desertification, and declining biodiversity. However, to date most of Afghanistan’s progress on environmental conventions has involved drafting national commitments, without a clear indication of how the country will implement and enforce these conventions.

Through this new project, UNEP will target specific regulatory gaps and help national and local institutions fulfil environmental commitments through delivery of hands-on training, support for monitoring environmental degradation, and data collection.

UNEP is already working to bridge the data divide providing government officials with training on how to manage visualizations and data for climate change assessments. The training, also held on 18 October, offered participants new insights on using GIS technologies for climate change modelling, methods of data processing and data mapping and fed into the high-level conference on “Climate Change and Urban Areas” in Kabul the following day.

The climate change conference, co-organized with NEPA, the French Embassy in Afghanistan, the French Institute of Afghanistan, and other academic institutions and NGOs, discussed sustainable architecture and urban planning, the economics of sustainable development, and environmental current challenges in Afghanistan.

With support from the UK Department for International Development, the EU, Estonia, and the GEF, these activities contribute to UNEP’s work in Afghanistan, which is focused on building environmental resilience and sustainability throughout the country.

More information: cassidy.travis@unep.org

Jean-Michel Marlaud, Ambassador of France to Afghanistan, provides opening remarks at the Climate Change and Urban Areas conference.