ICIMOD: Mandate, Functions, and Operations

  • Background
  • Participating countries of the HKH region
  • The Board of Governors
  • The ICIMOD Support Group
  • ICIMOD's Sponsors
  • REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMME
  • Mandate and Functions
  • ICIMOD's Unique Features

    Background

    ICIMOD is the first and, so far, only international centre devoted to integrated mountain development. ICIMOD was founded out of widespread recognition of the alarming environmental degradation of mountain habitats and the consequent increasing impoverishment of mountain communities in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) Region.

    The establishment of ICIMOD was based upon an agreement between His Majesty's Government of Nepal and UNESCO, signed in 1981. ICIMOD was inaugurated in December 1983 and began operating in September 1984. Nepal, the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, and UNESCO were the founding sponsors.

    Participating Countries of the HKH Region

    Governance

    The Board of Governors

    The supreme decision-making body of ICIMOD is its Board of Governors. According to the Statutes, "the Board of Governors of ICIMOD will consist of fifteen members of which eight shall represent the Governments of the participating countries of the Hindu Kush- Himalayan area. The other seven shall be international experts appointed by the Board on the basis of their professional competence in the scientific and technical fields relevant to the objectives and functions of the Centre." To find the current ICIMOD Board of Governors Click here

    The eight members representing regional countries are appointed by their respective Governments and the seven professional experts are appointed by the Board based on nomination by the ICIMOD Support Group.

    The ICIMOD Support Group

    According to Article 8 of the Statutes, "the Support Group shall be the main link and forum for interaction between the Centre and the donor community. While not intended to serve the functions of a governing body for the Centre, it shall provide suggestions and shall support the efforts of the Centre in respect to fund raising."

    The membership of the Support Group consists of the participating regional countries and donors showing significant commitment and support to ICIMOD on a sustained basis. Attendance at meetings will be by nomination from parent countries/institutions.

    ICIMOD's Sponsors

    The Centre receives two categories of financial support: core funds and project funds. Core funds are for implementing the "core" Regional Collaborative Programme for the Sustainable Development of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas. Project funds can only be used for narrowly-defined projects, as stipulated in the agreements with the concerned donor organisation. By the end of May 1995, the following governments and organisations were supporting ICIMOD at a total average annual level of approximately $ 3.5 million.

    REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMME ("core")

    Governments of

      Regional Member Countries               Denmark                          Switzerland
      Austria                                 Federal Republic of Germany
                               
    

    PROJECTS

    Governments Multilateral Organisations Foundations

    Austria Asian Development Bank Ford Foundation Germany (GTZ) European Community IDRC Japan FAO MacArthur Foundation Netherlands UNEP Norway (NORAD) UNESCO Switzerland (SDC)

    Mandate and Functions

    According to ICIMOD's Statutes, "The primary objectives of the Centre shall be to help promote the development of an economically and environmentally sound mountain ecosystem and to improve the living standards of mountain populations", especially in the HKH Region. In pursuing its mandate, ICIMOD works mainly at the interface between research and development and acts as a facilitator for generating new mountain-specific knowledge of relevance to mountain development. At the same time, ICIMOD attempts to ensure that new knowledge is shared among all relevant institutions, organisations, and individuals in the region. As such ICIMOD functions as

    1. Documentation and Information Exchange

    The Centre's activities in the information field, so far, have concentrated heavily on two aspects: firstly, the development of a comprehensive documentation centre and an appreciable library with computerised bibliographic and serial databases as well as bibliographies on a number of specific subjects.

    Networking, repackaging, accessing, and compiling databases are in an early stage of development, and enhanced efforts are being made to upgrade skills and facilities. Networking arrangements are being developed to improve information exchange mechanisms.

    Secondly, the Centre publishes documents describing the results of original research, knowledge reviews, workshops, training courses, etc that have been sponsored by ICIMOD. More than 200 documents have been published so far, as well as a four-monthly Newsletter and the Centre's Annual Report.

    Other types of information exchange are carried out through public relations' activities using videos and more effective avenues of knowledge exchange. A permanent exhibition on major issues affecting mountain development is maintained at ICIMOD's headquarters.

    2. Research

    ICIMOD carries out various kinds of research, ranging from state-of-the-art reviews of specific problem areas and policy reviews to action research in which a number of practical spin-off benefits can accrue to limited geographical areas. ICIMOD's experience in action-research - a move from experimentation and study to direct application in the field - include Mountain Resource Management, Rehabilitation of Degraded Lands, and Sloping Agricultural Land Technology in most of its Regional Member countries. ICIMOD is also involved in limited scale original research through programmes such as the one on beekeeping.

    In all areas of research, ICIMOD seeks to make maximum use of its findings in as many countries of the Region as possible. In seeking viable methods of sustainable mountain development, ICIMOD seeks to identify successful interventions that can be replicated across the HKH Region. Collaboration with national research institutes is a major focus for ICIMOD's research activities, including provisions for institutional strengthening.

    3. Training

    The Centre, in collaboration with national agencies, is promoting different measures to build capacities in the ICIMOD member countries in the various fields of relevance to sustainable mountain development. Capacity building is needed in both the technical skills and policy design for sustainable mountain development. As such, a broad range of target groups for training and orientation can be identified and different measures for strengthening the human resource base of relevant institutions are needed. ICIMOD focuses its training mainly on:

    ICIMOD cannot hope to provide all the training programmes needed, nor can it train in large numbers. Therefore it concentrates its training in a number of critical mountain-specific critical areas with a focus on the training of trainers and decision-makers.

    4. Advisory Services

    ICIMOD provides advisory services on a continuing basis to government and non-government organisations. The majority of these services are provided free of cost when they relate to requests for information and advise that can be handled from ICIMOD's headquarters in Kathmandu. Numerous visitors to ICIMOD are advised on useful experiences in mountain development in the HKH and on relevant literature by the professional staff of ICIMOD.

    ICIMOD also provides advisory services on both an individual and a team basis. Individual experts are used by governments in specific programmes. Others are used by bilateral and multilateral donors in programme development and reviews. Individual consultancies usually involve the loan of an individual professional to a programme or project already established by a related organisation in one or more countries of the Region for which ICIMOD's professionals have skills offering comparative advantages. ICIMOD is particularly well equipped to assist in the reviews and assessment of planned, operational, or completed programmes on integrated mountain development or its subsectors.

    ICIMOD's Unique Features

    ICIMOD is the only international organisation with a clearly defined eco-regional focus, and the ecological boundaries of the mountain ecosystem of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas determine its area of intervention. Within this geographical mandate ICIMOD provides linkages between

    Environment and development   :sustainable development of mountain areas will only be possible
                                   if both issues are addressed at the same time
    
    Research and development      :ICIMOD works at the interface of  research and development
    
    Policies and technologies     :policies for sustainable mountain  development need to be
                                   backed up with appropriate technologies and vice versa
    
    Disciplines                   :the broad range of disciplines  represented by ICIMOD's 
                                   professional staff enables it to  address mountain issues in an 
                                   integrated way
    
    Countries                     :the common concerns for the HKH bring eight countries 
                                   together, benefitting from each other's knowledge and
                                   experiences
    
    As such ICIMOD functions as a mountain development forum for the HKH.