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Towards a shared mountain agenda for Africa

05.11.2014

International plans to coordinate Africa’s mountain agenda were started in Arusha, Tanzania, on 22-24 October 2014 when more than 100 participants gathered for the First African Mountains Regional Forum.

The goal of the forum was to enhance collaboration and frame a regional agenda for sustainable mountain development challenges in African mountains. Government officials, civil society actors, private sector representatives and researchers, who attended the forum, increased their understanding of common conservation and development issues; identified strategic actions to address major emerging issues, such as climate change, and decided to promote linkages and collaboration among stakeholders for a regional framework on sustainable mountain development (SMD) in Africa.

Among the requests the meeting made it in its outcome document are that:

governments develop and implement mountain-specific policies, laws and programmes as well as mainstream SMD in their national development agenda;
national and sub-regional economic communities make cooperative arrangements for the management of transboundary mountain ecosystems; and
governments and other stakeholders enhance their climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and measures to ensure the sustainable flow of mountain goods and services.

Governments, the private sector, civil society and development partners were encouraged to develop and support public-private-civic partnerships to enhance the value chains linked to mountain ecosystems so as to improve the livelihoods of the mountain communities.

Ecosystem and natural resource management policies and initiatives were recommended for mountainous areas on disaster risk management, sustainable farming systems, access to information, public participation, gender integration, education and job creation for youth.

The establishment of an Africa Regional Mountains Forum was proposed to serve as the body to oversee the promotion of the SMD strategy and agenda. The Forum, convening every two years, would also provide an arena of knowledge, information exchange and policy dialogue in collaboration with the Mountain Partnership.

The African Mountain Partnership Champions Committee was proposed to serve as the interim Steering Committee and the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS), who was among the conveners of the meeting in Arusha, as the interim Secretariat until permanent institutional arrangements can be made.

The meeting also looked beyond Africa – urging the inclusion of mountains in the Post-2015 development agenda and the strengthening of mountain-related knowledge sharing.

Organized by the ARCOS and the Africa Mountain Partnership Champions Committee, in partnership with the East African Community (EAC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the three-day forum saw the participation of numerous Mountain Partnership member institutions.

Consult the Arusha Outcome Document

See news about Madagascar’s participation (in French)