Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR's Division for People kicked off the 2025 edition of the Mentoring Programme of the CIFAL Global Network (CGN) aimed at enhancing the CGN ecosystem by strengthening peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges and fostering collaborations among CIFAL centres across regions of the world. Held between 17 and 21 March, four sessions took place, bringing together 11 CIFAL Centre Directors, 5 mentors, long-standing directors, and 6 mentees, newly appointed directors connected virtually to exchange experiences and bridge connections.
The CIFAL Global Network is an instrumental platform for providing capacity building and learning opportunities to a wide range of stakeholders with a particular emphasis on local authorities and civil society leaders. The CIFAL Global Network is comprised of 33 International Centres for Authorities and Leaders across Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North, Central, and South America, reaching 153,116 beneficiaries and delivering over 407 training and public awareness events on sustainable development-related fields in 2024.
The Mentoring Programme aims to support Directors of newly established CIFAL centres by accelerating learning in the core areas of governance and management, designing capacity building training programmes, and partnership development. Key objectives include:
- Draw from the expertise and experience of CIFAL directors with a long trajectory of managing a Centre
- Promote connections around common interests
- Strengthen peer-to-peer connections
- Facilitate collaboration among Centres and exchange knowledge
The kick-off meeting followed an interactive format to facilitate deep collaboration around common interests and key priorities for managing CIFAL centres. Group mentoring, peer-to-peer mentoring and individual mentoring sessions are planned to take place throughout 2025.
UNITAR is grateful to our stellar group of CIFAL Directors serving as Mentors: from Ms. Deborah Salafranca (CIFAL Malaga, Spain ), Dr. Gail Grabowsky ( CIFAL Honolulu, USA ), Dr. Crystal Tremblay ( CIFAL Victoria, Canada ) Ms. Ana Cristina Munoz ( CIFAL Merida, Mexico ), and Dr. Mpilo Ngubane ( CIFAL Durban, South Africa ).
UNITAR is proud to welcome remarkable leaders serving as Directors of CIFAL Centres including, Dr. Amelia Hadfield ( CIFAL Surrey, UK ), Ms. Ihuoma Njemanze ( CIFAL Nigeria ), Ms. Akiko Ito ( CIFAL Japan ), Dr. Brodie Beales ( CIFAL Newcastle, Australia ), Ms. Maricarmen Estrada ( CIFAL Miami, USA ), Mr. Hugo Ceron Molina ( CIFAL Curitiba, Brazil ), Dr. Christopher Belford ( CIFAL Banjul, The Gambia ).
