DECISION COP4/9

Awareness raising, education and public participation

Article 13 of the Carpathian Convention

The Conference of the Parties

1.  Welcomes the outcomes of the EU Lifelong Learning project “Big Foot. Crossing Generations, Crossing Mountains”, aimed at sustainable development of rural mountains regions through intergenerational learning, and invites support to the use of the Big Foot Transferability Tool Kit to transfer the project results to the Carpathian countries;
2. Welcomes the new Lifelong Learning project Innovation in Rural Tourism (InRuTou), which includes Carpathian Convention partners from Poland, Romania and Ukraine and has a vocational learning component for sustainable rural tourism development;
3. Welcomes the continuous use of innovative Information and Communication Technologies approaches in Education and Public Participation, such as the Communities Livelihood Platform, developed by the Big Foot project, or the E-learning platform of the InRuTou project, and invites the Parties to support their active use by the Carpathian communities, organizations and individuals;
4. Invites Parties and other stakeholders to carry out regional consultations and to continue to raise public awareness in order to promote the Carpathian Convention implementation process;
5. Recalls the progress by Move 4 Nature Programme, and invites further support to the adaptation of the Tool Kit to other countries and translation to other Carpathian languages, and supports cooperation with other partners and other mountain regions in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), such as the Regional Center of Expertise in ESD and other partners in the Alps, the Balkans and the Caucasus;
6. Requests the Secretariat, in consultation with Parties and relevant partners, to facilitate cooperation of the Carpathian Convention with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Steering Committee on ESD, and to investigate options for establishing a Carpathian Regional Network within this process, in order to strengthen Carpathian countries in implementation and follow-up of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development;
7. Invites the Focal Points of the Carpathian Convention to coordinate with the Focal Points of the UNECE steering committee on ESD, in order to inform each other about the respective activities and developments on the national level, and to share the results of this coordination with the CCIC,
8. Requests the Secretariat to provide for opportunities for outreach, involvement and the active participation of civil society in the development of the Convention, through its official work, and development of strategic documents and projects;
9. Reiterates its recommendation to establish and develop national mechanisms to foster the implementation of the Carpathian Convention, including information, involvement and capacity building of relevant stakeholders and civil society related to the process and the future development of the Carpathian Convention.
10. Welcomes the cooperation of the Secretariat with UNIDO on training of young entrepreneurs in the Carpathian region in sustainable and green entrepreneurship.