ECSP Director Named Co-Vice Chair of International Human Dimensions Programme

Geoffrey Dabelko, director of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), has been appointed co-vice chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). During his term, which begins April 2006 and ends December 2007, Dabelko will focus on the Bonn-based group's renewed efforts to facilitate practical and applied dialogue between scientists and policymakers.

"Although we typically talk about science informing policy, the science-policy interface is really a two-way street," Dabelko said. "Scientists with new findings on climate change or biodiversity loss can provide policymakers with critical inputs to policy formulation. But scholars and their research also benefit from consulting early and often with policymakers and stakeholders with on-the-ground insights."

IHDP, a collection of scientific networks, brings together natural and social scientists on a range of global change topics. While disciplinary boundaries too frequently keep scientists from collaborating on research projects, IHDP provides avenues for integrated research.

Dabelko will join a new IHDP leadership team, including Oran Young of the University of California at Santa Barbara, who will succeed Coleen Vogel of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, as chair of the IHDP Scientific Committee; Roberto Guimaraes of the UN Division for Social Policy and Development; and Hebe Vessuri of the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas. Guimaraes and Vessuri join Dabelko as co-vice chairs, succeeding Roberto Sanchez-Rodriguez of the University of California at Riverside.

ECSP has a long history collaborating with IHDP and one of its core projects, the Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS). For the past seven years ECSP has hosted Washington policy briefings for GECHS's information bulletin series, AVISO.

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