News

2 January 2020

On the 1st of January 2020, LRT joined hands with UNESCO

After many years of fruitful collaboration, the United Nations University and the Land Restoration Training Programme are parting ways, along with the other three Training Programmes in Iceland on fisheries, gender equality and geothermal energy. As of 1 January 2020, the four Programmes are a part of the new UNESCO category 2 centre GRÓ - Centre for Capacity Development, Sustainability and Societal Change.
Fellows 2019
20 December 2019

Season´s greetings

Dear friends. The year 2019 is soon coming to an end and it has certainly been a special year for our Programme. After a long and successful collaboration with the United Nations University, the Land Restoration Training Programme has joined hands with the other three UNU training programmes in Iceland, on Fisheries, Gender Equality and Geothermal Energy, to form GRÓ: the International Centre for Capacity Development - Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Societal Change. The Centre will become a UNESCO Category 2 centre as of 1 January 2020.
Course participants in the field
7 November 2019

Successful completion of a course in Uganda on sustainable land management, land restoration and linkages to climate change

UNU-LRT ran its third short course on sustainable land management, land restoration and linkages to climate change, in collaboration with the Ugandan partners: the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and Makerere University. The course took place in Soroti, Eastern Uganda, from 21 to 29 October with 25 participants, six women and 19 men. Read More
On graduation day
7 November 2019

First UNU-LRT MSc scholarship recipient finishes a degree at the Agricultural University of Iceland

Mr. Joel C. Owona, a former fellow from Uganda, completed a Master of Science at the Agricultural University of Iceland on 23 September. He is the first former fellow to complete an MSc degree with a scholarship from UNU-LRT. Mr. Owona attended the six-month training programme in 2008 and came back to Iceland in 2017 to start his MSc studies.
UNU-LRT alumni at SER World Conference
4 October 2019

UNU-LRT at the SER World Conference

UNU-LRT was well represented at the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) World Conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of September. This was the first time an African country hosted the conference and thus a good opportunity for the UNU-LRT alumni, especially from Africa, to network and present their work. UNU-LRT hosted a symposium at the conference entitled: Land restoration for improved livelihood in Africa: Challenges and opportunities. A part from the talk from the UNU-LRT Director on capacity building for restoring land, four other speakers presented their work in the symposium, among them two former UNU-LRT fellows, Mr Mulugeta Sebhatleab Tesfay from Ethiopia (fellow in 2014) and Ms Setrida Mlamba from Malawi (fellow in 2018).
Graduating group of 2019
23 September 2019

Graduation at UNU-LRT

The UNU-LRT fellows graduated from the annual six-month training programme on 18 September in a ceremony at Keldnaholt Research Campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland. This was the largest group so far to graduate; 21 fellow from 10 countries in Africa and Central Asia, 11 women and 10 men. Up to date, a total of 139 fellows have graduated from the programme and 48% of them have been women and 52% men.