GEO-LDN | Working Group 1

Working Group 1: Capacity Development

Leadership

Co-lead	Institution	Country
Amos Kabo-Bah	University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR)	Ghana
Timothy Dube	University of the Western Cape (UWC)	South Africa
Mercy Ojoyi	African Forest Forum (AFF) at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)	Kenya
Patrice Sanou	Institut Supérieur d’Etudes Spatiales et des Télécommunications (ISESTEL)	Burkina Faso

Key Tasks and Objectives
The aim of Working Group 1 (WG1) is to develop an innovative capacity building mechanism that provides answers to SDG 15.3 while addressing the needs of various stakeholders at regional, national and individual levels.

The outputs of WG2 and WG3, together with other reporting requirements and/or decision-making supporting tools, will be the input for the development of the capacity-building interventions. Rather than developing the content of the capacity-building interventions, WG 1 will explore and promote mechanisms to support, effectively and innovatively, the strengthening of the required capacities on the three intervention levels.

Achievements
As of May 2022, the LDN postgraduate programmes, hosted at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, have been submitted to Ghana’s Tertiary Education Commission for accreditation, kickstarting the last formal process of the programmes’ realisation.

In the weekend preceding the 2022 GEO Week, a training on LDN, LUP4LDN, and Trends.Earth was organised in Ghana with land use planners from the region.

Next Steps
Key objectives for WG1 are related to the postgraduate programmes, the virtual massive open online courses (MOOCs), and stakeholder engagement activities. Postgraduate programmes – key activities and outputs include:

• Mobilisation of key partners and the development of a programme brand identity
• Development of and budgeting for scholarship programme for students

MOOCs – key activities and outputs: Creation of a capacity development strategy for the MOOCs (GEO-LDN Secretariat)

• Development of an e-learning course on the use of land cover data for monitoring progress towards SDG 15

Stakeholder engagement – key activities and outputs:

• Scenarios for Integrated Land Use Planning (S4ILUP) workshops
• Digital training (webinars): providing training opportunities to 500 people in the use of geospatial analysis tools for planning, monitoring, and decision-making processes
• Dialogue/Open Forums

If you would like to join the GEO-LDN working group 1, please contact us via email. You can also find more ways to get involved in GEO-LDN here.