Background

The first-ever meeting on the mountain areas of Asia - the Regional Conference on Sustainable Development of Fragile Mountain Areas of Asia - was held in December 1994 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The Conference brought together over 60 policy-makers and practitioners from New Zealand to Iran. The most significant achievement of this conference, apart from the wide sharing of knowledge and experience in mountain development problems and opportunities, was the adoption of the Sustainable Development of Mountain Areas, or SUDEMMA, Call to Action, which calls upon countries to place mountain areas higher on their respective mountain development agendas. One of the decisions of the Meeting was for the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu to facilitate information exchange about Asian mountain areas. The Asia Pacific Mountain Network is a follow-up to this decision.

The Asia Pacific Mountain Network is an informal forum for the exchange of information and sharing of knowledge affecting sustainable mountain development in the Asia/Pacific region, amongst agencies and personnel concerned or associated with such mountain areas. The network is coordinated by ICIMOD through a special grant from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Objectives

The network's main objective is to facilitate information exchange about mountain development issues among professional, development workers, and policy-makers in Asian countries. It also seeks to sensitise donor agencies about the critical need for and options regarding sustainable mountain development.

Focus

The APMN focusses on information sharing and exchange on the issues recommended by the SUDEMMA Declaration. They are:

• Poverty eradication and economic development
• Sustainable management of natural resources
• Gender-balanced decision-making in environment and development policies and programmes
• Preservation of cultural heritage
• Reducing the vulnerability to mountain disasters
• Stronger collaboration among the mountain countries of Asia in order to share experiences, data and information, policies, technologies, methodologies, management systems related to sustainable mountain development
• Capacity building

Activities

Focussing on the above issues, the APMN will undertake the following activities.

Establish a network through mail and other means among agencies working in mountain development. Encourage these to share information on mountain development programmes, activities, problems, etc.

Establish different focal points for the different subregions of Asia in order to develop strong subregional linkages for sharing information and for other activities related to mountain development.

Support the development of the APMN Bulletin, produces by ICIMOD, focussing on short descriptions of mountain and upland areas, people, and their lifestyles; development issues, problems, and activities; and agencies concerned with and working for mountain development and their activities.

Organise meetings, seminars, and exchanges along with other activities that can contribute to the sustainable development of mountain areas.

Focal Points

The mountain regions of Asia and the Pacific have been divided into a number of subregions for the purpose of networking. These subregions and the Subregional Focal Point Coordinators identified to initiate and promote network activities as well as to establish linkages are as follow.