17 October 2014: The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has organized a capacity building workshop for countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on mitigating global environmental problems. The event provided 25 participants from the Ministries of Environment, Energy and Ecology of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine with tools to enhance the quality of project submissions to the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The five-day workshop, organized from 13-17 October in Vienna, Austria, was part of UNIDO’s project ‘Regional Capacity Building for Developing Programmes for the Mitigation of Global Environmental Problems.’ The project, which is funded by the Russian Federation, focuses on national-level technical capacity building for addressing climate change and emerging environmental challenges in the region.

Issues covered during the training included: project development in areas, including toxic industrial waste management, renewable energy and industrial energy efficiency; approaches by the participants’ countries to solving environment problems; and UNIDO’s strategy on the implementation of GEF-funded projects.

The October event was preceded by a workshop organized under the same project umbrella in March 2014, in Vienna, Austria, which provided participants from the same countries with information on GEF projects, and skills to leverage financing from bilateral and multilateral donors, in particular the GEF.

Training and cooperation under the project are expected to continue through 2015. [UNIDO Press Release] [IISD RS Story on UNIDO March Workshop]