Highlights from the past month:
Play for Change (Climate Change Awareness Summit)
On October 7th, the Play for Change (Climate Change Awareness Summit) took place at Kadoorie Agricultural High School. 150 students from schools around Israel took part. Special thanks to EcoPeace sponsors, the Embassy of Germany in Israel, and diplomacy teacher Nadav Baron and the diplomacy students who coordinated the interdisciplinary experience, involving media, geography, art, science and diplomacy stations, and to the school for hosting.
Global Climate Change Week in Gaza
From the 12th-15th of October, 70 youth from different schools in Khan Yunis, Gaza celebrated Global Climate Change Week. The week included a variety of activities: presentations, short film screenings and discussions, a parents and students panel, meeting elderly people and delivering messages by bicycle throughout the community. The week ended with a tree planting initiative at schools and in various public areas.
Tech Agriculture Hackathon in Jordan
From October 10th-12th over 100 participants, organizers, and sponsors gathered at Zain Innovation Campus (ZINC) in the King Hussein Business Park, in Amman, for an Agriculture Hack-a-thon. The goal was for entrepreneurs, startups and SME’s to share their business ideas and inventions relating to agricultural technology while receiving both technical and business guidance from experts. EcoPeace was a sponsor of the event and evaluated some of the proposed projects.
Other partners included: ZINC, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Spark, Hassad Business Accelerator, the University of Jordan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Jordan, the Swiss Embassy in Jordan, the Crown Prince foundation, and Tech Works.
Swedish Minister Visit
On October 15th, Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation, Peter Eriksson, along with the Swedish Ambassador to Jordan, Erik Ullenhag, and representatives from The Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) went on a site visit to the Dead Sea.
EcoPeace’s Palestinian and Jordanian Directors, Nada Majdalani and Yana Abu Taleb, along with Israeli Deputy Director, Dalit Wolf Golan, spoke about EcoPeace’s plan to save the Dead Sea and Jordan River, to improve water access and encourage renewable electricity generation in the region.
EcoPeace Contributes to New Publication on Peacebuilding
October 28th marked the launch of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation’s publication “Dialogue in Peacebuilding: Understanding Different Perspectives”. EcoPeace Jordanian Director, Yana Abu Taleb, contributed an article focused on the art of dialogue in a polarized region.
Click here to read Yana’s article on page 96.
United Nations Capital Development Fund Conference on Municipal Finance
On October 3rd, EcoPeace’s Investment team participated in a High-Level Policy Dialogue on Municipal Finance in the city of Malaga, Spain. The event was organized by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the United Cities and Local Government (UCLG) and generously hosted by the city of Malaga.
The objective of the Dialogue was to build a coalition that will advocate for, and achieve, the repurposing of municipal finance towards a financial ecosystem for municipalities that meets the SDG challenge. It aimed at assessing the needs of different stakeholders and incorporating their views and visions into the global coalition on municipal finance.
The above activities are part of the Good Water Neighbors (GWN) project, which is supported by the Swedish International Development Agency.
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Workshop
From October 14th-16th October, EcoPeace, in partnership with the Regional Program Energy Security and Climate Change Middle East and North Africa (REMENA) of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, led a workshop on Water Security & Environmental Peacebuilding for practitioners and civil society organizations from the MENA region in Rabat, Morocco.
Israeli Director, Gidon Bromberg, visits the USA
Presentation at the World Bank
Israeli Director, Gidon Bromberg, spent the month of November in meetings and giving presentations on the work of EcoPeace across the US. Highlights included a presentation at the World Bank, roundtable discussion at the US Institute for Peace, presentations in Universities in Washington DC, Chicago, Illinois, Oregon and California, including at the launch of the 1st International Conference on Environmental Peace Building.