Abstract ID: 3.11547 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

To promote informed decision making under global change scenarios, it is essential to make state-of-the art scientific knowledge available for decision makers. However, this has been identified a one of the key gaps for effective mountain governance, climate change adaptation and sustainable development in the Andes. In this context, the consolidation of the Andean Mountain Initiative (AMI), as voluntary platform bringing together environmental authorities and foreign affairs authorities from the seven Andean countries has been key. The joint work of official focal points of the AMI, its governance and knowledge management working groups and the technical secretariat at CONDESAN (with support from the Adaptation at Altitude Program financed by SDC), has promoted the development in the context of the AMI´s 5 years action plan, of a comprehensive strategy for knowledge management and science-policy dialog, with an interdisciplinary, gender inclusive and continental perspective. Among the key strategies promoted have been a series of regional knowledge synthesis products (e.g. synthesis on climate change vulnerability and adaptation across the Andes, the platform of socio-ecological indicators for the Andes) and attractive infographic pieces (on Andean Peoples, Biodiversity, Climate Change and Water), which have made available for governments essential information and turned the AMI into a trustworthy source of up-to-date knowledge on the Andes as a region. Another key strategy has been the development of a series of science-policy dialogs, which have brought together AMI decision makers (and representatives from other global mountain platforms) and leading scientists working on research and long-term monitoring of Andean socio-ecosystems to discuss recent progress and essential information needs for policy formulation and consolidation at national and regional scales. These strategies have constituted key inputs for several important processes including the 2024 Declaration for Andean Mountain Ecosystems, the consolidation of a project proposal for the Adaptation Fund on climate change adaptation in strategic watersheds, the formulation and revision of national mountain policies (e.g. in Venezuela, Colombia and Perú), and the joint formulation with other regional mountain platforms of a roadmap linking biodiversity and climate change from the CBD´s COP16 in Cali to the UNFCCC´s COP30 in Belen du Pará.