Organisers: ICIMOD (HKPL) and Aga Khan Foundation

About the event

This joint regional consultative workshop aims to exchange, consolidate, and prioritise mutual learning and opportunities to further strengthen cooperation, synergies, and partnerships for enhanced socioecological, economic, and climate resilience of communities living in the Hindu Kush Karakoram Pamir Landscape, also known as Bam-e-Dunya (‘roof of the world’ in Persian). Regional partners including government agencies, policy makers, academics, development organisations, and civil society will contribute to the workshop.

Objectives

The workshop’s main objective is to expand opportunities for collaboration among all partners towards enhancing resilience and creating a positive impact in Bam-e-Dunya. The specific objectives include:

• Share and consolidate lessons (thus far) and common opportunities for the future
• Strengthen landscape partnerships, collaborations, and platforms
• Agree on and align common priorities and institutional transitions and frameworks for effective partnership

Outputs

• Consolidation of transboundary needs, priorities, and mutual experiences on programmes and resilience
• Collaborative partnerships, roles, and resources for actions
• Signed MoUs/LoIs
• Mechanism to strengthen Bam-e-Dunya
• Identification and strengthening of regional cooperation for emerging opportunities

Background

The Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Pamir, and Western Himalayan Mountain ranges across Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan constitute an important landscape laden with natural, ecological, and social resources, systems, and features. The landscape provides invaluable ecosystem services to millions of people upstream and downstream and is integral to sustaining long-term ecological, social, and economic benefits to local communities.

The rapid changes in this landscape induced by climatic, demographic, and anthropogenic factors are not only putting enormous stress on the continuity of healthy ecosystem services but also raising the concern for future sustainability. Habitat fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, outmigration, and eroding livelihood opportunities are the various adverse and apparent impacts of climate and anthropogenic changes across the landscape.

Joint studies on land use change, tourism potential, high-altitude food and nutrition security, and outmigration assess these changes and subsequent vulnerabilities. ICIMOD is engaged with its partners to mitigate adverse effects by cocreating science, engaging policy partners for change, and codeveloping solutions and best practices. However, there is a need for integrated solutions at scale to enhance landscape resilience to sustain socioecological and economic functions, structures, and processes.

The transboundary solution at scale relies on mutual exchanges, engagements, enhanced capacities, broader understanding, wider partnerships that complement decision-making mechanisms and processes. Bringing these approaches together is sometimes long and tedious but important to boost regional cooperation and subsequently develop prioritised common conservation and development actions across the landscape. ICIMOD is committed to facilitating processes that help expand knowledge, capacity, coordination, and networking in the HKPL. The Bam-e-Dunya Network is one platform that facilitates such exchanges.