ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – Grenada will host the sixth high-level forum of ministers responsible for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
The Partnership Initiative for Sustainable Land Management (PISLM) said that the April 11–12 event will be attended by ministers from the 16 member states responsible for implementing the UNCCD in the Caribbean as well as senior PISLM, CSIDS-SOILCARE Phase, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) officials.
“This high-level Ministerial Forum will be the launching pad for the first session of the PISLM Ministerial Council. The objective of the ministerial working session is to guide the PISLM Executive Committee and the PISLM Secretariat in the rollout of the PISLM IPO
“In this regard, ministers responsible for UNCCD would discuss how to promote sustainable land and sustainable soil management practices as a climate change adaptation strategy, identify areas of action and priorities moving forward, and explore the possibility of further collaboration,” the organizers said in a statement.
PISLM is the inter-governmental convening mechanism for the Caribbean SIDS established by the Forum of Ministers of Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean at their 14th meeting held in Panama as part of their adoption of the Caribbean SIDS Programme,
It is the principle body assigned by the 25th Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), held in April 2008 in Guyana, to coordinate, on behalf of CSIDS, the Land Resources components of the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA), the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action (MSI/BPOA), and the Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA Pathway) in Caribbean Small Island Developing States, as well as to serve as the framework for Caribbean SIDS for the implementation of the UNCCD.
PISLM’s mission is to harmonise policies, provide innovative solutions and capacity building in collaboration with CSIDS, and meet their obligations on sustainable land management (SLM) and soil health.
Participating member states include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba.