In the hot city of Tbilisi more than 50 people from all over our region have gathered to learn more about climate change and the civil society’s role in combating it. We want to share with you some of the highlights of this year’s Climate Dialogues.
As previously, CAN EECCA has gathered participants from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asian countries and did it together with our long-term partners: Friends of the Earth Germany and Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Climate Dialogues have been held since 2020, and during that time we have created a platform for engaging more than 200 experts from around the EECCA region. What was different this time is that we finally met offline. Not only we brought together the experts, but we also decided to help the young climate leaders from the region to grow in their expertise and other skills. That’s why we divided the event in two parts and want to share some insides with you!
Part 1
We have brought together 22 participants from 11 countries around the EECCA region: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. One of the underlying requirements was for the climate leaders to be connected to their local communities and be fluent in their national language. The participants were selected through a careful process involving an open call for applications and interviews. We received a total of 151 applications from participants of diverse age groups, genders, and backgrounds.
Thematic sessions included:
Climate Change and Justice by Mariam Davidze, Green Alternative. During our first session, we covered a wide range of topics – starting with the climate policy overview of the region, NDCs and vulnerabilities which our countries have and ending on a more social perspective. We have discussed why climate change affects people in different ways and did an exercise trying to “decode” the most popular climate slogans, to analyze what kind of principles and solutions are hiding behind them.
Decolonization lens by Nurzhan Estebes, CAN EECCA. This year we are trying to explore more connections between social and climate or energy issues in our region. We have dug deep into the concept of decoloniality and tried to outline some examples of how we can use this knowledge in our work.
Energy security and independence by Alexei Ovchinnikov, Green Network. Energy security seems to be a highest priority for the European continent now during the Russian war in Ukraine. We have analyzed why our energy systems are so interdependent and vulnerable, what kinds of energy would bring us more stability and we busted some energy myths on the way.
Gender Justice lens by Nurzhan Estebes, CAN EECCA. We have come back to look into the climate and energy issues through another social perspective, bringing up the cases from our countries and concrete ways to strengthen the gender justice component in climate work.
Climate communication by Ketevan Vardonidze, Climate Basics. Here we listened to the experience of our Georgian colleagues from Climate Basics whose main goal is to communicate complex issues like climate policy in an engaging and clear manner, so that even a school student from a little town in Georgia could get interested and would want to explore more. We hope our participants soaked up these tips and will use them at home.
We have also included a short training on facilitation by Teona Dalakashvili in order to prepare the participants for working with groups and passing the knowledge more effectively.
After such an intense program, the participants are already back home and preparing to hold their very own workshops in local languages. We will keep you posted about their successes during the year.
Part 2
We did not want to stop as capacity building for the younger climate leaders, but also, bring together a diverse group of experienced CSOs.
The whole 2022 became one big challenge for the civil society of the EECCA countries because of the full-scale war which Russia started in Ukraine. Apart from obvious challenges for our Ukrainian members, we have seen more restrictions for the CSOs in the region and new capacity challenges. For example, more CSOs were announced as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” preventing them from getting sustainable funding. Climate topics were deprioritized in some countries which coincided with a big migration wave, leaving organisations without human resources and proper media support. Considering all that, It was a very good time to take stock of the role which the civil society plays in the EECCA countries and discuss how we can make our positions stronger.
Apart from mapping the challenges we meet and the resources we have to overcome them, we have also organised several practical sessions:
Climate policy and the role of civil society by Olha Boiko, CAN EECCA. We have covered some basics of climate policy as well as more detailed ways to participate as a CSO. The organisations discussed their experience of following the UNFCCC negotiations and shared good practices of their advocacy both on the local and national level.
Nargiza Korgoldoeva, CAN EECCA social media expert, led a session for participants on improving communication through social media and new challenges of audience engagement on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Baktygul Chynybaeva, CAN EECCA Communications Manager, conducted a session on effective communication with journalists and gave practical advice to the participants.
The second part of Climate Dialogues gave us an understanding that the civil society of the EECCA region stays strong and connected no matter what. We are constantly adapting and finding new ways to continue our work. We’ll need many more allies and young leaders to keep the pressure on decision-makers as well as to educate society on ways to combat the climate crisis.
Climate Dialogues 2023 was organized in partnership with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Georgia, Just Climate competence center by FES, BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) and Ecoaction.
Stay tuned for more activities from us and our partners!
