Regional Youth Workshop on IPBES for Europe and Central Asia

The regional workshop aims at building capacities of early career professionals and committed young people from European (including the CEE region) and Central Asian countries. During the workshop the participants will learn about IPBES processes and products and explore options for youth engagement in IPBES activities.

The youth workshop will bring together 25 participants from Western, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia who are actively engaged in work on biodiversity, ecosystem services and nature conservation (including interlinkages with water, food, health and climate change or transformative change processes), representing a youth organisation/network from Europe and Central Asia and interested in taking part in and contributing to IPBES processes. They aim to achieve disciplinary, gender and geographic balance when selecting candidates.

Eligibility Criteria

• Be between 18-30 years of age
• Be a national from one of the following countries (Reflecting the scope of the IPBES regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia):
  • Western European countries: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • Central European countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Turkey
  • Eastern Europe: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine
  • Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
• Be actively engaged in work on biodiversity, ecosystem services and nature conservation (including interlinkages with water, food, health and climate change or processes and activities of transformative change)
• Be nominated by a Government or an organisation/network via a letter of reference
• Be committed to participate in person in the youth workshop. Participants are expected to actively contribute to the workshop and to report on its outcome and on the work of IPBES to their home institutions and other relevant organisations and networks
• Have very good speaking, reading and writing skills in English as the workshop will be held in English
• Have demonstrated ability to respectfully interact with people from other disciplines and work effectively and efficiently in a multicultural team.

Selection Criteria

• The application process consists of two parts:
  • Application: Candidates are invited to complete the online application form, including a statement of motivation and a letter of reference by their nominator (a government or their organisation/network) as an annex.
  • Nomination: Candidates need to send their nominating Governments, organizations or networks (nominator) either the download-link or the file of the nomination form/letter of reference. The nominator then has to fill in the nomination form, rename the file and send it back to the applicant. Then the applicant needs to attach the nomination form/letter of reference as an annex to the online application.

Application Requirements

• Please note that the nomination form/letter of reference is in English only and needs to be filled out on a computer (no handwriting!) with Latin letters, otherwise it cannot be transferred to their database. The completed form needs to be saved and renamed using the following filename systematic:
  • Surname of the applicant-First name-nomination.pdf
• Governments, youth organisations and networks engaged in work on biodiversity/ecosystem services and nature conservation (including interlinkages with water, food, health and climate change or processes and activities of transformative change) can nominate a candidate with the qualifications to participate in the youth workshop. International or regional youth organisations and networks can nominate up to five candidates from their own organisation/network, but only one candidate can be nominated per country. Nominators have to provide a letter of reference for each candidate. This form should state specific reasons why the candidate is being nominated, preferably addressing the following points (max. 2000 characters):
  • Brief information on the work of the candidate’s organization/network in supporting engagement of younger generations in topics related to biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as nature conservation (including interlinkages with water, food, health and climate change or processes and activities of transformative change)
  • The candidate’s role and contributions (past and ongoing) in its youth organisation/network
  • How the candidate’s youth organisation/network will benefit from participation in the youth workshop
  • How the nominator will facilitate and support the successful applicant in sharing their experience from the youth workshop within the organisation/network

For more information, visit BfN.