Congratulations to the GRÓ LRT fellows of 2021
GRÓ Land Restoration Training Programme graduated 17 fellows in a ceremony at the Keldnaholt campus of the Agricultural University of Iceland, held on 27 September. This year’s graduating cohort came from eight countries in Africa and Central Asia: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Malawi, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uganda.
At the graduation ceremony, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Development Cooperation, Mr Martin Eyjólfsson, addressed the guests as did the GRÓ LRT Director, Dr Sjöfn Vilhelmsdóttir, and two of the graduating fellows, Ms Paulean Kadammanja from Malawi and Mr Ganzorig Ulgiichimeg from Mongolia. GRÓ Director General, Ms Nína Björk Jónsdóttir awarded the fellows with the certificates, together with the GRÓ LRT Director. The Rector of the Agricultural University of Iceland, Dr Ragnheiður I Þórarinsdóttir, closed the ceremony. Only 15 of the 17 graduating fellows took part in the ceremony as two of them had already travelled back home because of personal reasons.
The graduating cohort of 2021 is the first group of fellows to participate in the six-month training after the Land Restoration Training Programme became part of GRÓ International Centre for Capacity Development - Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Societal Change, in January 2020. The fellows were invited to participate in the training in 2020 but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 training programme was postponed to 2021.
Since the beginning of the Land Restoration Training Programme in 2007, 156 specialists, in the fields of restoration and sustainable land management, have graduated from the annual six-month training programme; 52% of them have been men and 48% women, from 13 partner countries.
Congratulation class of 2021!