As the Paris Climate Change Conference approaches with much media flare, other significant initiatives on the global environment continue to advance their agenda.  Recently in October, the leadership of Executive Education facilitated a high-level simulation workshop during the 12th meeting of the parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) - one of the three so-called “Rio Conventions”, along with the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  During that meeting in Ankara, the Parties to the UNCCD adopted Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) as a key organising principle of UNCDD, following directly upon a key target of one of the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the General Assembly of the UN late September 2015.

All countries will now set their own specific objectives and voluntary targets to achieve LDN at national level. In that context, Executive Education's objective with the simulation was "to highlight critical choices in the design and implementation of policies aiming at addressing land degradation," says Professor Cédric Dupont, Director of Executive Education. "During our workshops, national policy-makers walked the full journey from the determination of objectives to the choice of specific implementation mechanisms and subsequent monitoring and evaluation tools”. Prof. Dupont developed and ran the simulation jointly with Valérie D’Hoedt Meyer, Programme Director of the Institute's Executive Certificate in Environmental Governance.

The workshops received a very positive responses from participants, opening up new horizons for Executive Education at the Institute.  “We look forward to fine tuning the concept and use it for other major international conferences and events” says Valérie D’Hoedt Meyer. “I am also now planning to bring the tool to our classrooms and run the simulation during the coming edition of the Executive Certificate in Environmental Governance”.  

That Executive Certificate, a part-time degree programme delivered in Geneva, serves to build capacity in governments, organisations and companies for their strategic responses to a range of environmental challenges.  Executive Education has now opened applications for the 2016 edition of the Executive Certificate.  Learn more about the programme on the Environmental Governance home page.

See also the UNCCD press release for further details on the agreement from the recent COP in Ankara.