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Dear members of the Mountain Partnership, dear friends, As we look ahead to 2021, the Mountain Partnership Secretariat wishes to thank and congratulate you all for
your continued support for mountains and mountain people in 2020 despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic. This year, our Partnership continued to grow, and we welcomed 34 new members. We look forward to 2021 to continuing
to work with each and every one of you, new and old friends of the mountains, in a spirit of engagement and collaboration. Throughout 2020, Mountain Partnership members highlighted the progress on achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals in mountains, in particular during the High-level
Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York with a virtual side event on the crucial role of mountain communities in advancing
the UN Decade of Action 2020-2030, particularly in light of the impacts of COVID-19. Through distancing learning, both the
13th IPROMO
course and
3rd GROW Summer
School reached record numbers of participants, with 38 and 30 young professionals and researchers tuning in respectively from across the
world. The 2020 GROW Summer School featured its first ever innovation contest. Matthew Purkis from South Africa won
the contest with his proposal to develop a mobile app for data collection and value chain development specifically focused on participatory guarantee systems and agrobiodiversity. The Mountain Partnership Products (MPP) initiative reached new heights.
Collaboration started in five countries – Guatemala, Lesotho, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda – combining the efforts of the United Nations Develop Programme Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme and the
MPP initiative to increase the resilience of mountain communities through enhancing agri-food value chains. The Mountain Partnership Secretariat released a number of publications in 2020, including its
2019
Annual Report, the recipe booklet
Cooks
in High Places: Mountain Specialties, and an
article
for the Mountain Research and Development journal. International Mountain Day (IMD) saw the launch of a
new study on food insecurity in rural mountains that provides recent data and analysis on food insecurity drivers. Also on IMD, a virtual
event was organized to celebrate the day that premiered a video featuring
a mountain soundtrack by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi. During the event, the
Nepalese trail and sky runner Mira Rai was appointed Mountain Partnership Goodwill Ambassador. Welcome Mira! Some 70 related events were organized on IMD day in 26 countries.
Read about the events here.
Congratulations goes to the winners of the International Mountain Day
photo contest on mountain biodiversity: Tarushi Agrawal from India (children category), Jaime Venegas from Ecuador (youth category) and Troise Carmine-Washi
from Italy (adult category). Over 500 beautiful photos of mountain landscapes, plants and animals were received from 55 countries. An infographic with key facts and figures about mountain biodiversity collated with the Global Mountain Biodiversity
Assessment was made available in the six UN official languages:
Arabic,
Chinese,
English,
French,
Russian and
Spanish. More than 180 articles were published by major national and international news outlets. An editorial
signed by FAO Director-General QU Dongyu was published by over 20 international news outlets. For details, see the outreach document attached. 2021: here we come! Our united global voice for mountains is our biggest strength. Sending you mountainous wishes of health and prosperity for the holiday season, Happy New Year, Bonne année, Feliz año nuevo, Felice anno nuovo! The Mountain Partnership Secretariat |
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