It is a pleasure to be with you today to introduce the report, ?The Mountain
Partnership: Activities and Achievements?. This was prepared for the 14th session of
the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) by the Mountain Partnership
Secretariat, hosted by FAO, at the invitation of the United Nations General Assembly
at its 60th session in December 2005.
The report provides an update on progress and achievements since the inception o f
the Mountain Partnership, discusses some of the key challenges facing this
Partnership today and provides lessons learned and proposals on how to strengthen
the impact and effectiveness of the alliance.
Launched at the WSSD in 2002, the Mountain Partnership was conceived to provide
a new platform to improve the well-being, livelihoods and opportunities of mountain
people and the protection and stewardship of mountain environments around the
world. Its flexible and open structure allows members to tap the wealth and diversity
of resources, information, knowledge, and expertise of members, in order to add
value to their programmes, projects and activities, to identify and promote new
mechanisms for cooperation and to build lasting alliances that will bring positive
change to mountain regions, whose populations are amongst the poorest and most
disadvantaged on Earth.
As the report demonstrates , the Mountain Partnership has become increasingly
operational as a multistakeholder alliance, working toward the sustainable
development of mountain areas . Of the approximately 300 registered partnerships in
the CSD Partnerships database, the Mountain Partnership is among the biggest, with
a total of 133 members. And more members are seeing the value of carrying out
activities in the context of the Mountain Partnership as this generally provides greater
recognition and new opportunities for developing collaboration and generating
funding.
However, despite progress and achievements in some areas, challenges remain.
Nearly 4 years after its launch at WSSD, the Mountain Partnership, as is the case
with many other CSD Partnerships, is at a critical juncture. At WSSD there were high
expectations that new and innovative partnerships would accelerate the
implementation of sus tainable development policies and actions in the second
decade following the Rio Earth Summit. This was surely the case with mountains.
But, the reality of governments, inter-governmental and major group organizations,
including the private sector, working together to achieve common goals has at times
proven to be more challenging, if not elusive, than originally expected.
This report by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat in FAO is not an exhaustive
review of what has been undertaken since the launch of the Partnership in 2002.
Rather, it highlights some significant advances, while drawing attention to key issues
and challenges that are considered critical to the long-term success of the Mountain
Partnership. These challenges involve the uneven level of involvement of members .
Communication and networking over geographic and linguistic borders. Greater
participation of the private sector. And mobilizing increased levels of funding.
At the Mountain Partnership Secretariat in FAO , we hope that some or all of the
issues outlined in the Report will be of interest and value beyond the immediate
stakeholders of the Mountain Partnership and will be relevant to the effective
development and functioning of other CSD Partnerships .
Thank you.
