Commission on Education and Communication

Annual Report to Council - November 2009

CEC is a global network of voluntary practitioners and experts with a mission to drive change towards sustainability through leading communication, learning and knowledge management in IUCN and the wider conservation community.

What is CEC?

Photo: Royal Roads University

• Network Facilitation: CEC stimulates collaboration and promotes cross-sectoral dialogue and alliance processes, formal and informal.

• Capacity Development: CEC has the capacity to design learning programs and is engaged in professional development in the environmental sector.

• Change Agent: CEC advocates and inspires transformation and behaviour change in individuals, organizations, both within IUCN and externally to leverage larger impact.

• Communication Catalyzer: CEC catalyzes communication and is a source of catalytic communication in support of IUCN and the global sustainability agenda.

• Partnership Builder: CEC offers authority in partnership processes that help partners influence and be positively influenced by others.

• Knowledge Management: CEC offers expertise in how to identify, create, represent and distribute knowledge for learning and innovation.

Driving change means …

To drive change means that CEC has had to change.

• CEC is changing how it is organized• CEC is adapting its membership and what it focuses on• CEC is partnering with different parts of the Union in

new ways• CEC is investing in recruiting new members to provide

the next generation of communication and learning leadership for pressing issues today and tomorrow

• CEC is embedded across the “One Programme”

Driving change means …

CEC Organizational Structure

Focal Point in Secretariat

CEC Chair

Specialty Group Leaders

Deputy ChairVice Deputy Chairs

Special AdvisorsRegional Vice Chairs

National Activators

CEC Members

Liaisons to Programme Directors

• CEC is most strongly connected to the IUCN programme in biodiversity, climate change and a green economy, linked with IUCN Global Results 1.2, 2.1, 4.1, 5.2

Climate Change

• Raising awareness and building partnerships with IES, CNA, NATO and retired military of national governments

• Disseminating military’s ‘strong signal’ for Copenhagen

Climate Change and the Military

Dialogues to link conservation and security communities

Military experts from five continents warn…

“incremental, and at times, abrupt, climate change is resulting in an unprecedented scale of human misery, loss of biodiversity and damage to infrastructure with consequential security implications that need to be addressed urgently.”

• CEC provided input on a climate change curriculum for Jeju, Korea training centre

• CEC sponsored a workshop “Empowering public participation in informed decision-making” at FAO Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries: Options and opportunities in crops, forestry, livestock, fisheries and agro-industry to face the challenges of food insecurity and climate change

Learning about climate change

Biodiversity

CEC promoted IUCN partnership with National Geographic’s Planetary Action Atlas

A communications platform for biodiversity and climate change http://www.actionatlas.org/

Communicating Biodiversity

• Signed resolution to Encourage the philanthropic community to increase their funding for visual communication for conservation • Actively promoted WildSpeak conference for conservation communication

• Advised CDB on logo, and supporting communication strategy and manual for International Year of Biodiversity

• Supported IUCN and Rio Tinto due diligence for business and biodiversity

• Dialogues for project proposal to SGS company for in-house training on sustainability

• Next step: Business and biodiversity reporting capacity building – CEC specialty chair

Green Economy

Photo: Argyle diamond mine, Rio Tinto 2009

• Facilitated representation of young people on IUCN Commissions

• Created Wiki and Facebook resources for Intergenerational Partnerships for Sustainability

Intergenerational Partnerships

• Managers of protected areas in Ecuador

• PA Managers, NBSAP Coordinators in the Caribbean

• Strategic communication training and ESD community building at Bonn UNESCO conference

• Participants at World Environmental Education Conference - Montreal

• Iberoamerican Environmental Congress APECO, Peru

• Ecuador Ministry of Environment training

Training workshops to build strategic communication capacity of conservation professionals:

CEPA Workshops

Formal learningPrepared MOU signed by IUCN and Royal Roads University to create an Institute to award certificate for courses drawing on a global range of e-learning courses

Informal learningBuilding www clearinghouse for informal providers of sustainable e-learning courses

Learning for professional development

Photo: Royal Roads University

• Offered expert support to IUCN dialogue processes

• Planned environmental info centre in Spain

• Evaluated opportunities for private sector sustainability training

Learning for professional development

“I think we can take a lot of quiet satisfaction from the role we played in facilitating multi-stakeholder input and support and thus enhancing the likelihood of successful implementation. It is also gratifying to note that at a recent meeting in Accra a number of stakeholders publicly attributed the critical turning point to IUCN's (CEC and the Secretariat) input on designing and supporting the consultative framework. To me this is IUCN at its best!”

Stewart Maginnis

Learning for professional development

IUCN played a key role in developing a Voluntary Partnership Agreement on forests between the Government of Ghana and the European Union

• Communicate climate change and biodiversity

• Strengthen regional focus

• Deepen collaboration within the “One Programme”

• Broker alliances with non-traditional partners

• Plan for the next generation of Knowledge Management and Networking

• Engage new audiences, e.g., women and youth

• Build the IUCN Institute• Communicate value of protected

areas as to biodiversity• Sustainable Education Learning

Centers Network• Evaluate new communication tools

and strategies• Continue to drive change

management best practice for sustainable solutions

Future directions for CEC

• Communicate value of protected areas to biodiversity

• Build skills for PA managers

• Improve knowledge management

Developed joint CEC-WCPA work plan to:

Inter-Commission collaboration in support of the One Programme

www.iucn.org/cec

Email: cec@iucn.org

Joint meeting ofCEC-WCPA Steering Committees with support of the Ecuadorian Government and the SUR OfficeEcuador, May 2009

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