The Caucasus is a unique region situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, between the Caspian and Black Seas. Home to fifty ethnic groups speaking forty languages, the region has a rich and diverse cultural history and heritage. The Caucasus is also known as one of the world’s most significant and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life.
Efforts to address sustainable development challenges related to poverty reduction, social protection, and environmental quality have a reasonably long history. However, protracted armed conflicts and political volatility have undermined the emergence of concerted responses to urgent problems. Against this background, the Caucasus Network for Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions (Sustainable Caucasus: www.sd-caucasus.com) was founded in 2014 to enhance sustainable development in the Caucasus region by supporting regional cooperation, bringing together key stakeholders, and implementing innovative solutions on the ground.
The organisation itself comprises a small team of people based in Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia), and Yerevan (Armenia), which is guided by a Board and headquartered in Tbilisi; with partners in other countries of the Caucasus ecoregion. Sustainable Caucasus draws from the expertise of many skilled individuals through its partners’ networks in the design and implementation of its activities.
Since its foundation, Sustainable Caucasus is the Coordination Unit (Secretariat) of the Scientific Network for the Caucasus Mountain Region founded also in 2014 (SNC-mt), which is an open network of researchers and other stakeholders interested in disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research on the Caucasus region and academic collaboration. The representatives and founders of the Scientific Network for the Caucasus Mountain region are scientific institutions from the six Caucasus countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and the Russian Federation). The founding members signalled their commitment to promote research collaboration through targeted activities, exchange of knowledge, and best practices across borders and streng…
