On June 12th, a member of DCG participated in a meeting between NGOs working on desertification issues and the Desertification Experts of the EU Member States. DCG took part in this meeting as a member of eniD. The EU started by presenting its activities in terms of desertification and the floor was then open to our questions. We were informed about the Intersessional Intergovernmental Working Group (IIWG) which is working on a future strategy for the UNCCD. Results of this working group's discussions will soon be available on the UNCCD website. Here is an informal note on the IIWG. CARI, a member of eniD, then presented the Forum that will take place in Montpellier in September on 'Civil Society and Desertification'. Finally, a presentation was made on DesertNet which is a network of scientists in Europe working on desertification issues. Please visit this website for more information: www.desertnet.de.
An annual eniD meeting took place the next day. The following topics were discussed:
- Update from eniD members
- The Montpellier Forum
- EniD's future
- CRIC5
- The Global Mechanism
- IIWG
- TerrAfrica
- The Finnish EU presidency