The great start for the great program
The Seventh Central Asian Leadership Program on Environment for Sustainable Development has already started. Young specialists from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan have arrived to Almaty for participation, along with international experts, representatives of the Foreign Ministries and parliamentarians from Central Asia.
The executive director of CAREC, Iskandar Abdullaev, has underlined the importance of this Program for inter-country cooperation, both in today’s realities and for the future of the region:
“CAREC Central Asian Leadership Program has been an effective tool for building partnership and cooperation in Central Asia for the past 7 years. Interning in the program, young professionals of the region become pioneers of such close networking on environmental issues in Central Asia”
Natalia Alexeeva, Head of UNEP’s Sub-regional Office for Central Asia; Ambassador György Szabó, Head of the OSCE Programme Office in Astana and Kuralai Karibaeva, member of CAREC Board of Governors have addressed welcoming speeches to the participants.
There are USAID, OSCE, the representatives of UNEP and the Secretariat of UNECE, the German society for international cooperation (GIZ), UNESCO, UN ESCAP and many others among the partners that are involved as lecturers, speakers and observers. Therefore, this year's program differs by the subject of the forthcoming discussions, level of the speakers and participants.
There are more than 200 Leadership Program graduates, who are working in five countries in Central Asia and Afghanistan in various capacities in the field of environmental protection in different sectors, including public authorities and non-governmental organizations, mass media and business sector. The Seventh CALP will certainly be an asset to the further improvement of regional cooperation.