Climate, Peace and Security Experts Academy

The youth iteration of the Academy, held in Nairobi, Kenya, focused on empowering young professionals and emerging public section leaders to address climate, peace and security challenges. This iteration emphasized the meaningful engagement of youth, leveraging their unique perspectives to advance climate action for sustaining peace. Participants explored key themes such as youth-inclusive climate policies, climate finance for peace, and youth-responsive approaches to conflict prevention. The Academy also facilitated peer-to-peer exchanges and innovative tools, fostering a network of young leaders committed to influencing and shaping the climate, peace and security as well as youth, peace and security discussions.

Focusing on climate mitigation policy, finance, peace and security, the training targeted policymakers from settings with potential for drastic decarbonisation and industry transitions but also those which need to urgently scale-up access to energy, whiles sustaining peace, stability and security, including in FCV contexts. It focused on pathways of decarbonisation related to energy and economy/industry transitions and low carbon development, post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding and stabilization. It gathered 32 government officials, negotiators and experts that are already working on mitigation policies, prioritising fragile and conflict-affected settings to (a) exchange a core set of tools and approaches; (b) advance peer-to-peer exchange on best practices from across the regions; and (c) foster a network to inform future multidisciplinary practice on climate policy for peace and security, while bearing in mind the importance of strengthening national and local ownership as well as context specificity.

The Regional Climate, Peace and Security Academy for Europe and Central Asia Region was the first regional iteration of the Academy. The UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub convened a three-day Academy aimed to introduce a core set of knowledge and tools to respond to the region's specifics and increase engagement of UN offices on climate, peace, and security across the region.  More concretely a) build capacity of field experts and its stakeholders b) establish a  regional programmatic offer and a pipeline of targeted interventions, including scoping for potential project opportunities c) map interest, capacities and readiness of country offices to implement relevant interdisciplinary activities d) establish an platform of engagement/CoP on Climate Security for Europe and Central Asia region, while e) further expand engagement and understanding of member states of the climate security agenda. The Academy gathered 46 participants from 16 countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, representing various roles.

The second iteration of the Experts Academy was designed to bring together policymakers and UNDP experts providing technical accompaniment to share experiences from a new field of practice and practice-driven research on climate policy and finance for peace, with a specific focus on peer-to-peer exchange. It contributed to (i) foster the development of policies and strategies mainstreaming considerations of climate, peace and human security. (ii) integrated approaches to climate finance for sustaining peace, especially in contexts affected by conflict and fragility. (iii) increased understanding of evidence and advocacy on the linkages between climate change, conflict, and sustainable development, and promotion of action-oriented solutions. (iv) facilitate knowledge-sharing and networking among stakeholders on climate, peace, and security, and (v) enhance knowledge-sharing and networking among stakeholders from diverse sectors and regions, including government partners from contexts affected by conflict and fragility, on climate finance and policy in the context of peacebuilding.