22 March 2012: The 2012 edition of World Water Day, which is held every year on 22 March, focused on the theme "water and food security." The official UN-Water celebrations were coordinated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), who noted that a 50% reduction in food waste would save 1350 km3 of water per year.
14 March 2012: The Latin American Development Bank (CAF) recently launched a Regional Innovation Initiative for the Development of Renewable Energy Generation and Energy Efficiency Technologies.
This conference is organized around the theme "Agricultural Production and Economic Growth in Harmony with the Environment: A Shared Vision in the Context of Climate Change." It will be hosted by the Honduran Government and Zamorano University, with support from the Inter-American Institute on Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD), the Central American Commission on Agriculture (CAC), and several international organizations related to agriculture. The conference is intended to help prepare the eight Member States of the Central American Integration System (SICA) for negotiations on issues related to food, biomass and other agricultural production in upcoming global talks on biodiversity, biosafety and climate change, as well as the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD or Rio+20).
This meeting, organized by the US State Department, Brazil's Foreign Ministry and the Organization of American States (OAS), is hosted by the Guatemalan Government. It aims to strengthen US-Brazilian cooperation with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras on biofuel-related issues, as well as to facilitate the articulation of a road map for further activities based on the lessons learned so far since the implementation of the 2007 US-Brazil Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance biofuels cooperation.
6 March 2012: The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Spanish company Telefonica have announced the winners of the Second Green Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Hackathon, where developers from all over the world competed to propose and develop a “Sustainable Energy for All” ICT application. The first prize went to a community bicycle application.
23 February 2012: The World Bank has approved a US$15.9 million Global Environment Facility (GEF) grant to consolidate existing protected areas and create an additional 13.5 million hectares of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon over the next four years.
22 February 2012: The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) has granted a credit line to Guatemala's Agromercantil Banks SA (BAM) to loan for renewable energy projects in that country.
22 February 2012: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced that Brazil will host World Environment Day 2012, under the theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?” World Environment Day, which is celebrated annually on 5 June, will take place a few weeks before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20).
16 February 2012: The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has awarded over US$1.3 million in grants to 18 projects that will support communities in Canada, Mexico and the US in their efforts to address environmental problems at the local level.
9 February 2012: The Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO-RLC) and the Chilean Energy Ministry have launched a manual on producing biogas and using it as an energy source, particularly in rural and agricultural contexts.
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