Newsletter

The Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (RRC.AP) and the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics - International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (SANDEE-ICIMOD) jointly organized a 3-week Summer School on Environmental and Resource Economics (SSERE2018) from 30 April to 17 May 2018 at the AIT Conference Center and Swutel Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.

The RRC.AP Director, Mr. Osamu Mizuno, and Deputy Director, Dr. Jonathan Shaw, welcomed a total of 24 practicing economists from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka who were convened to acquire basic skills necessary to teach environmental and natural resource economics and to undertake research in this area, specifically on the linkages between economic development, poverty, and environment.

Dr. Ram Lal Verma, RRC.AP Programme Specialist (Air and Atmospheric Pollution) delivered a lecture on "Atmospheric Brown Clouds, Air Pollution Transboundary Issues and Initiatives" as a guest lecturer. The participants expressed high appreciation on the overall flow of the training programme, from the design of the course contents, the excellent presentations by the resource persons, and the smooth arrangements by the organizers, SANDEE and RRC.AP.

The Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop on Cities' Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risks was conducted on 7 to 11 May 2018 at the Sukosol Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop was designed by AIT RRCAP in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Human Settlements Programme and the United Nations Development.

This practical workshop was attended by 21 participants from 8 countries, namely, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. The workshop was aimed at building the capacity of national training institutions, trainers and city government officials responsible for capacity development from the Asia and the Pacific region to deliver training on mainstreaming climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in city development plans and strategies. Besides the practical nature of many sessions, such as the analysis and use of the "Disaster Resilience Scorecard for cities", participants also had the chance to go on a field visit to the Khok Kham Mangrove project and start developing their action plans.

The AIT RRC.AP participated as a Non-Party stakeholder at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) May Inter-sessional Talanoa Dialogue taking place at the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany on 6 May 2018. The Talanoa Dialogue was launched at COP23 in November 2017 following a mandate to convene a facilitative dialogue among Parties to take stock of collective efforts to reduce emissions and build greater resilience, in line with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement and to inform the preparation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Ultimately, the goal was to help countries increase the ambition of their NDCs by 2020. Seven Talanoa groups ("Talanoas") were set up, each consisting of about 35 participants which included 30 Party representatives and 5 non-Party stakeholder representatives. The discussions were conducted following the spirit of the Pacific tradition of Talanoa of sharing stories, building empathy and trust, and engaging in an inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue.

Each panelist was invited to prepare analytical, policy-relevant, and solution-oriented stories. The AIT-RRCAP shared an inspiring story of William Reihe, an entrepreneur from the Marshall Islands who had participated in an AIT RRC.AP training programme that taught him about energy efficiency measures and had built a business around these services. Later on, he expanded the business to provide solar applications for his clients. The story ended by inciting those present in the room and beyond to support entrepreneurs like William.

The Third Meeting of the ASEAN Working Group on Chemicals and Waste (AWGCW) was held on 2-3 May 2018, in Putrajaya, Malaysia. The Meeting was attended by delegates from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, and representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat. Representatives from the Basel Convention Regional Centre for South East Asia (BCRC-SEA), the Swedish Chemicals Agency (KEMI), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Economic Research Institute ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) also attended in some of the sessions. The meeting noted, with appreciation, the presentation by AIT on the Proposal on the Development of Capacity for the Substitution and the Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) of Mercury-containing Medical Measuring Devices. The meeting supported the proposed project in principle and requested AIT to incorporate the suggestions and inputs from ASEAN Member States (AMSs) on the proposal and submit the revised version to AWGCW through the ASEAN Secretariat for further review.