Welcome to the website of Minu Hemmati !

This site is meant to provide information about my work, background, and professional interests.

I am working as a self-employed advisor in the following areas:

Current Projects

Special Advisor to The Seed Initiative - Supporting Entrepreneurs in Environment and Development. Seed is an innovative programme that aims to promote and support innovative, locally driven, entrepreneurial partnerships for sustainable development. It includes an international award scheme, a range of capacity building and mentoring measures, and a research and learning channel. Seed is a partnership of IUCN - The World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, Paris), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the governments of Germany, The Netherlands, the UK, the USA, South Africa as well as Swiss Re; and collaborating with the UN Global Compact and Global Giving.  http://seedinit.org

Cooperation with LIFE e.V. / genanet: Working to implement a multi-pronged strategy aiming to increase gender responsiveness of international climate change and climate protection. Coordinated a number of activities at the last UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties in Montreal 2005, in Nairobi 2006. Currently undertaking a review of relevant research on gender and climate change, supported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). http://www.genanet.de/unfccc.html?&L=1&tt_news=30

Prepared a report on Participatory Dialogue and Social Integration for the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development, to be published in February 2007.
Previously member of the UN DESA Expert Group "Dialogue in the Social Integration Process: Building peacueful social relations - by, for and with people", convened in November 2005.  http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/egm/index.htm

Coordinating the Action Research activities and participating in the Core Group of the Generative Dialogue Project (GDP), sponsored by the Metanoia Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Synergos Institute, Global Action Network-Net, the United Nations Development Programme, the Society for Organizational Learning, and Generon Consulting.
The GDP is a community building and action research initiative. It focuses on the connection between personal and societal change and on the potential for transformative dialogic processes to generate radical change on a global scale. The project aims to contribute to the world's capacity for addressing complex global challenges, including problems such as environmental degradation, poverty and disease, and deepening political, social, and economic divides.  www.generativedialogue.org

Supporting the development and implementation of the Leadership for Conservation in Africa initiative (LCA) since its inaugural meeting in August 2006. The LCA is a partnership between the conservation agencies of (so far) 13 African countries and African and international businesses. Initiated by South African National Parks, Gold Fields, and IUCN Southern Africa, the LCA aims to further conservation-led development across Africa through creating enabling environments, building capacities, and brokering strategic exchange and investment.

A partner of SD2 Partners - Stakeholder Dynamics for Sustainable Development: SD2 Partners Ltd is a ‘young consultancy’ made up of ‘old hands’ in their respective fields of international business, environmental management systems, socially responsible investment, and stakeholder dialogue and partnership brokering. SD2 Partners helps companies to understand, adapt to, and use their dynamic stakeholder environment. We work to enable clients to act rather than re-act, using a targeted approach that focuses on identifying economic consequences in relation to stakeholder engagement, leading to improved corporate strategy and risk/opportunity management.   www.sd2partners.net

Co-facilitating a course on Facilitation of Multi-stakeholder Dialogues, in collaboration with the Collective Leadership Insitute, Potsdam. The course will have two modules (February + June 2007) and apply a learning approach that combines conceptual input, skills practice, field projects, peer learning and coaching.   www.collectiveleadership.com 

Member of the Board of Directors of Ecoagriculture Partners. "Ecoagriculture" refers to sustainable agriculture and associated natural resource management systems that embrace and simultaneously enhance productivity, rural livelihoods, ecosystem services and biodiversity. Ecoagriculture includes a wide range of systems and practices that integrate productivity goals (for crops, livestock, fish, trees and forests) with provision of ecosystem services including biodiversity and watershed services at a landscape scale.  Ecoagriculture Partners is an independent non-government organisation, a node in a network of farmers and farmer organizations, non-government organizations, public agencies, scientific organizations, agribusiness and environmental conservation.  www.ecoagriculturepartners.org

Member of the Jury for Swiss Re's International ReSource Award for Sustainable Watershed Management; since 2003. Swiss Re's Resource Award is designed to recognise projects that preserve the ecological, social and economic value of water resources. The global reinsurer supports water projects across the world and is committed to creating feasible and binding conditions to protect this vital resource. For more information, including about the 2004 ReSource Award, criteria and application deadlines: www.swissre.com/resource

Member of the Independent Advisory Panel for the One World Trust's Global Accountability Project (GAP). Initiated in 2000, GAP compares the accountability of intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), transnational corporations (TNCs) and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). At the heart of the project is a unique framework which identifies core organisational dimensions crucial to fostering greater accountability.  www.oneworldtrust.org

Moderating the list serve "women-csd", dedicated to exchange and networking on women / gender and sustainable development / environment issues, particularly around the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/women-csd/

Recent Projects

Member of the UN ECE / Arhus Convention Expert Group / Task Force on Public Participation in International Forums, developing guidelines for the Parties of the Convention (UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, Arhus Convention).  http://www.unece.org/env/pp/

Supported the European SPAMGO train-the-trainer programme for the new training centre in Tblissi, Georgia: facilitating a course development workshop on communication and knowledge management with Adelphi Research, Berlin.  www.adelphi-research.de

Conducted a training in multi-stakeholder processes for the leadership group of the International Standard Association's process on Social Responsibility (ISO SR), under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute (August 2005). Broadening the training in a second step included Working Group and Task Group leaders, led by the Swedish Standard Institute (January 2006).

Various engagements as a moderator of panel discussions and other sessions at large conferences, for example: the German Protestant "Kirchentag", on globalisation and migration (May 2005); the Annual Conference of the German Sustainable Development Council, on values and lifestyles (Nov 2004), and on corporate social responsibility *Sept 2006).

Supported the development of Bayer CropScience's Sustainable Development / Sustainable Agriculture Strategy through an internal and external stakeholder consultation process; documenting the process; advising on next steps for implementation and monitoring. May 2003 - 2005.  www.bayercropscience.com

Supported the International Ecoagriculture Conference and Practitioners’ Fair (preparatory process, facilitation / brokering, presentation), held in Nairobi, Kenya, 27 Sept - 1 Oct 2004, hosted by Ecoagriculture Partners.  www.ecoagriculturepartners.org

Last updated December 2006

Copyright © Minu Hemmati, 2006