National stakeholders consultation on development of the Central Asia Climate Change Information Platform (CACIP) was held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on 9 September. The event wrapped up a series of consultations held in June and July in other countries of the region - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
A total of 27 participants from 21 organizations, including government agencies, international and regional organizations, academia and national agricultural extension services, attended the consultation. They discussed the goals and objectives of the future platform, content and data sources, as well as issues of its usage and maintenance.
Dr. Ram Sharma, ICARDA-CAC Regional Coordinator, Irana Bagirova, Director of CAREC Turkmenistan Country Office, and Berdy Berdiev, Head of Department at Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection of Turkmenistan, welcomed the participants.
The platform, set to be launched in spring of 2020, is expected to help raise awareness, and improve assessment and decision-making on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the region. It will provide comprehensive and up-to-date data and information from global, regional and local sources, with analytical tools and interfaces for their visualization and interpretation.
CACIP is being developed by ICARDA jointly with iMMAP within the World Bank-supported project Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Program for Aral Sea Basin (CAMP4ASB).
Prior to consultation, a survey of stakeholders was held, which proved that the platform was seen as a useful tool.
The news story about the meeting was published at Turkmenistan media as well.