The Prime Minister of Bhutan, Lyonchen Tshering Tobgay, rolled out the red carpet for ICIMOD 55th Board Meeting earlier in May, with an invitation list that included senior officials from six of the organisation’s eight regional member countries, heads of mission from the embassies of Australia, USA, Finland, Norway, senior regional heads from four UN agencies, and distinguished guests from ICIMOD donor countries and governance system.
Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, who returned to power on 28 January this year (following a previous term from 2013 to 2018), hosted a banquet in Thimpu on 1 May 2024 to welcome the dignitaries and explain Bhutan’s unique commitment to sustainable development, and gross national happiness, and its commitment to climate change leadership and carbon negativity.
The event emphasized the strong alliance between ICIMOD and the 98% mountainous Himalayan kingdom.
The Board, ICIMOD’s 55th, stood out for the numbers and status of those attending as observers.
Besides the Chair of the ICIMOD Support Group, Torun Dramdal, Ambassador of Norway to Nepal, the dignitaries included the Ambassador of Australia, Felicity Volk, the Ambassador of Finland Riina-Rikka Heikka and the Ambassador of the USA Dean Thompson.
It was the first time in ICIMOD’s history that so many agencies from the United Nations system were represented: with Subrata Sinha representing UN Environment Asia Pacific, Akiko Yamamoto representing United Nations Development Programme, Benno Boer and Prakriti Gurung representing UNESCO, and Ken Shimizu representing Food and Agricultural Organization.
In addition to the representatives of the regional member countries, ICIMOD's core and programme donors were represented by: Jan Erik Studsröd, Counsellor, Environment, Energy and Economic Development, Embassy of Norway to Nepal; Tove Goldmann, Head of Development Section and Ingrid Andvaller, Controller, Development Cooperation Section for Asia-Pacific, Embassy of Sweden; Jonathan Demenge, Head of Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland in India, and Riccarda Caprez, Policy Advisor, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Bern, of Switzerland; Jonathan Reeves, Senior Climate and Energy Advisor, British Embassy, Kathmandu, of the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office; John Dore, Lead Water Specialist, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, of Australia; and Patrick Gan, Regional Environment, Science, Technology and Health officer South Asia, and Jay Pal Shrestha, Regional ESTH Affairs Specialist of the US Embassy in Kathmandu. The Programme Manager, Global Budget Line of Austrian Development Assistance, Guenter Englis, sent a message of assurance for Austria's continued support to ICIMOD.
The Board of Governors, chaired in annual rotation by officials from ICIMOD’s regional member countries (a position held from 2023-24 by Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources Dasho Karma Tshering) is the highest governing body of ICIMOD: providing strategic advice and scrutiny and endorsement of policies. At the May event, Bangladesh was represented by Md Aminul Islam, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Chattogram Hill Tracts Affairs, China by Yang Yong Ping, Director General of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, India by Raghu Kumar Kodali, Adviser, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Nepal by Min Bahadur Shrestha, Vice Chair of the National Planning Commission, and Pakistan by Irfan Sayyed, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of National Food Security and Research.
Providing additional oversight and advice to ICIMOD is the Programme Advisory Committee, comprised of the independent Board members and chaired since 2023 by sustainability leader and former Director of Climate Change and Research at the Netherlands Government Teresa Christina Fogelberg, the Finance Committee, chaired by former Secretary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Renate Christ, and ICIMOD’s Independent Support Group (ISG), chaired by Norwegian Ambassador Torun Dramdal.
The Board this year bade farewell to Potsdam Institute’s Juergen P Kropp, deputy chair on the Department of Climate Resilience at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Reserarch as Board member, Tove Goldmann, and Jan Erik Studsrod as ISG members. Attending the board for the first time were Lennart Båge, Chair of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Anita Arjundas, Executive Director at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Wu Ning, Director General, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ivar Thorkild Jörgensen, Policy Director - Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, who join Teresa Fogelberg, Renate Christ, and IPCC Lead Author and Mountain Research Initiative Executive Director Carolina Adler as independent Board members concurrently serving as PAC members.
From left to right: Renate Christ (Finance Committee Chair), Jurgen Kropp, Anita Arjundas, DG Pema Gyamtsho, Torun Dramdal (ISG Chair), Teresa Fogelberg (PAC chair), Carolina Adler, Lennart Båge, Tove Goldmann (ISG Vice Chair), Ivar Jörgensen, and Wu Ning.
From left to right: Renate Christ (Finance Committee Chair), Jurgen Kropp, Anita Arjundas, DG Pema Gyamtsho, Torun Dramdal (ISG Chair), Teresa Fogelberg (PAC chair), Carolina Adler, Lennart Båge, Tove Goldmann (ISG Vice Chair), Ivar Jörgensen, and Wu Ning.
From left to right: Renate Christ (Finance Committee Chair), Jurgen Kropp, Anita Arjundas, DG Pema Gyamtsho, Torun Dramdal (ISG Chair), Teresa Fogelberg (PAC chair), Carolina Adler, Lennart Båge, Tove Goldmann (ISG Vice Chair), Ivar Jörgensen, and Wu Ning.
