Centre News
Hosted institutions
Mountain Forum: Highlights from the Board Meeting, and Management; Mr Iñigo Ballester Gurpide for
Cusco, Peru Information Technology and Knowledge Management;
The Mountain Forum (MF) Board of Governors has
and Mr Prabin Gurung for Information and Knowledge
representatives from the regional host institutions and
Management Systems
donor organisations, and elected members from user
Daan Boom, dboom@icimod.org
communities in the Andes and Asia-Pacifi c. The Board
met in June in Cusco in the Andes to discuss overall
Asia Pacifi c Mountain
progress and mountain development issues requiring
Network
coordination among the regional nodes and their user
communities. The Board was pleased to note the growth
Asia-Pacifi c Mountain Network
in the number of user communities; the interaction of
(APMN), the Asia-Pacifi c
users through e-dialogues, e-conferences, discussion
node of Mountain Forum
boards, and questions from users-to-users; and the
(MF), continued to develop
development of a mountain repository.
its activities as a knowledge-
sharing platform connecting
The Board emphasised that the main spirit of MF is to
mountain regions and
act as a ‘network of networks’ with a small governance
members through dialogue
and coordination body and with information and
and networking. In July 2009, the network had 243
communication exchange primarily executed by the
organisational and 1760 individual users from 39
regional nodes. In line with this, the global secretariat
countries.
will be converted into a global node with reduced
staff and the role of the regional nodes strengthened.
APMN worked with ICIMOD’s knowledge management
The future work plan should look into the possibility of
team to document knowledge and prepare daily briefs
engaging new, active mountain institutes in regions
for the Innovation Asia-Pacifi c (IAP) Symposium held
currently under-represented especially Africa and Central
in Kathmandu in May. The event was organised by
Asia. These new regions have invested heavily in the
CIAT ICIMOD, and Prolinnova, in collaboration with
past years in advanced telecommunication networks
LI-BIRD, and Practical Action – Nepal. The summer
and the Board has noted their demand to be involved in
2009 issue of the APMN newsletter appeared with
knowledge transfer on mountain issues.
a new name – Asia Pacifi c Mountain Courier – and
a focus on mountain biodiversity with articles, news,
Dr Andreas Schild of ICIMOD explained that he would
interviews, seminar reports, book reviews, and other
be unable to continue as Chair as implementation of
information. APMN is working closely with the Mountain
ICIMOD’s ambitious Strategic Framework 2008-2012
Forum Secretariat and other regional nodes to collect
required his full attention. This was diffi cult to combine
users views on mountain biodiversity in response to the
with chairing MF through its own growth and transition
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat’s
phase. The Board nominated Robert Hofstede (formerly
call for inputs to the Conference of Parties (CoP) 10 to
IUCN-Quito, Ecuador) as the new Chair and Daan
be held in Nagoya, Japan next year.
Boom, ICIMOD, as Vice-Chair. In view of this, the future
global node will be hosted by Condesan, the regional
APMN is also working closely together with youth
host organisation of MF in the Andes, from1 January
organisations based in South Asia to institutionalise youth
2010. The transition of the Global Node to Lima, Peru
issues in the mountain agenda. It supported the South
will not affect the activities of the Asia-Pacifi c Mountain
Asian Youth Summit on Climate Change (SAYSoCC-
Network, the node hosted by ICIMOD. The MF Board’s
09) organised from 3-6 September by Nepalese Youth
intention is to strengthen the regional node activities
for Climate Action; Clean Energy Nepal; the Indian,
through more effective collaboration among the nodes
Bangladesh and Sri Lankan Youth Climate Networks;
and decentralisation of the global network functions.
‘350.org’; and ‘ENVIRON VISION’, an action initiative
of the Youth Network for Social & Environmental
Four new staff joined the Mountain Forum Secretariat
Development.
to complete the outstanding activities in 2009: Ms
Sunita Chaudhary for Advocacy and Policy Support;
Tek Jung Mahat, tmahat@icimod.org
Ms Laura Elizabeth Keenan for Information Production
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