The Environment for Development (EfD) Annual Meeting 2009 has been successfully completed in Kenya 4-7 Nov 2009.
"The passion with which participants went about their presentations was unexpected but nevertheless very interesting. The level of participation was good", says Dr Wilfred Nyangena, Coordinator of EfD in Kenya/KIPPRA.
Dr Alemu Mekonnen, Coordinator of EfD in Ethiopia/EEPFE fully agrees:"The third EfD Annual Meeting was very good especially in terms of the presentations and the dicussions that followed. It was also good that specific experiences of policy interaction and dissemination were presented and discussed."EfD in Kenya was the organizer of the third EfD annual meeting, held in Naivasha and opened by Hon Noah Wekesa, Kenya´s Minister for Forestry and Wildlife.Right after the meeting Professor Thomas Sterner, Chair of the EfD research committee, says he found two things particularly striking: "It is wonderful to see how our EfD centres are growing, how people who – from my perspective – were recently young researchers are now becoming senior academics who are taking on great responsibilities, building up their centres, bringing in new young researchers into the field and taking on really important research issues as well as working closely with policy makers to improve the real world." "Also, I have been impressed that our publication record is already better than expected and many new exciting papers are coming out. Collaboration between the centres is increasing, and finally, we also have had a lot of fun!", says Sterner.
Research fellows from the EfD centers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, China, Costa Rica, Sweden and the US (Resources for the Future in Washington DC) participated, together with a number of collaborators. David Le Blanc, Senior Sustainable Development Officer at the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), was invited to participate in the meeting. In the closing session Le Blanc noted that it is clear that EfD researchers are doing policy relevant research. For example the UN Sustainable Development Innovation Brief on Sustainable Agriculture, written by EfD researchers Dr Menale Kassie and Dr Precious Zikhali, has been downloaded more than 3,000 times from the UN website since its publication last May.
The EfD centers also contributed to the World Bank's Environment Strategy 2010. The World Bank´s Current Priorities and the New Environmental Strategy was presented by Glenn-Marie Lange, Team Leader Policy and Economics, Environment Department, World Bank. The EfD input is posted on the World Bank website together with summaries and lists of participants from other Environment Strategy 2010 Consultation Meetings. The program included presentations and discussions of EfD work in progress as well as interactions to develop next year’s research program.