With joint efforts of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) and Tongji University, the Technical Closing Workshop of China-UNEP-Africa Cooperation Program on Environment- Phase II, under the theme of “One River, One Lake, One Desert”, was successfully convened from 1 to 3 April at the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD), totaling 55 participants from 12 countries participated.
Since 2011, six projects under phase 2 have been implemented under this phase in 16 African countries in partnership with 14 Chinese institutes. More than 800 participants from Africa have received training courses in different areas related to water management, and combating desertification and land degradation. This technical close out workshop held in tongji provided opportunity for the African and Chinese teams to document the main outcomes of each of the six projects, areas for improvement, lessons learned, and next steps.
Prof. Wu Jiang, Vice-president of Tongji University, addressed the welcome remarks during the Opening Ceremony and appreciated the continuous support from the African regional institutes and entities in the design and delivery of the China-UNEP-Africa Cooperation Program over the past few years. Mr. Chen Linhao,Deputy Director General,Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST), highlighted sincere cooperation in capacity building and technology transfer and expressed his appreciation of the coordination and support by UNEP, understanding and cooperation by African partners and hard work by Chinese institutes. Mr. Zhang Shigang, Country Representative of UNEP in China, spoke highly of UNEP’s great significance to China’s role in the regional environmental cooperation and south-south cooperation, which put UNEP-China-Africa environmental cooperation high on its programme of work. Ms. Jiang Shuhua, Program Officer from MOST, along with Mr. Mohamed Abdel Monem, Team leader for Ecosystem Management from UNEP, gave an overview of this year’s program and highlighted Tongji’s and IESD’s strong support and impressive efforts on this program, as a tangible contribution to the ongoing global sustainable development.
After the opening ceremony, each project manager and partners from African countries shared their outcomes and achievements from their project. All the participants joined the discussion on the final summary and Conclusion document of each project, which will be summarized together as one general report on the whole program and published jointly by UNEP and MOST.
During the rest of the program, african participants had an opportunity to visit Gallery of Tongji University History and Tongji Architectural Design (TJAD) so as to have better understandings of human, environment, society and economy, thereby addressing the need for effective sustainability leaders in Asia and in Africa.
