29th September 2021 online – SustainSahel accepted the invitation from Declan Kirrane, head of the EU-Africa Science Co-ordination Platform to join the round table discussion on science and research across the Sahel region. Convened under the patronage of the Coalition of the Sahel, the discussion session was one of a series of online events 14th-30th September running alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The objective of this series of events is to raise awareness of the role and contribution of science to the attainment of the UN’s Sustainable Goals.
Co-chaired by Declan Kirrane and Brian McCollow, US-Chad Investment Council, Harun Cicek, Sustain Sahel’s Co-ordinator was joined as a speaker by Patrick Worms, an agro-forestry expert from CIFOR and ICRAF and Ciara Leonard, Policy Lead for University College Dublin, Ireland.
Speakers shared their expertise in and knowledge of research programmes being undertaken across the Sahel and the lessons to be learnt from such programmes which need to feed into innovative new programmes. There was agreement that the Sahel can teach the rest of the world about its existing integrated eco-systems, as well as learning from others how best to develop and share solutions to scale up production and distribution. Inclusion of all members of communities, particularly women and youth, at all levels of activities to ensure ownership of innovations, whilst also embedding education into development planning are essential to drive change.
Speakers agreed that the common conundrum that the ‘right’ locally based solutions do not make it to the top of everyone’s agenda must change in order to deliver lasting benefit for local communities.
Further infomation
Links
UNGA76 Science Summit and its online sessions: https://unga76sciencesummit.sched.com/
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