Cuban environmentalists and businessmen established this week in Havana the IRIS United for Change Foundation, the first in Cuba with the purpose of contributing to counteract the impact of atmospheric changes, according to official media reports.
The Foundation “will be linked to science, technology, innovation, training and development activities, through the management of funds and the incubation of technology transfer and management research projects”, explained the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA) on their social networks.
Fundación IRIS will be linked to science, technology, innovation, training and development activities, through the management of funds and the incubation of technology transfer and management research projects@ElbaRosaPM@SANTANACITMA@adianez_taboada@ArmandoRguezB pic.twitter.com/crCCRwinnD
— Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (@citmacuba) April 5, 2023
The Cuban News Agency (ACN) reported that IRIS, announced since last year, had been constituted in the Kholy Real Estate, where the partners signed the contract before the Notary Leonardo Pérez, president of the Cuban Society of Civil and Family Law, of the Union of Jurists of Cuba.
The CITMA had presented IRIS in April 2022 as a project, with the purpose of influencing the confrontation with climate change in Cuba and Latin America.
Elba Rosa Pérez, CITMA minister, signed the document together with Rudy Montero, until recently in charge of the Institute of Geophysics and Astronomy, and now president of the Foundation, whose acronym alludes to the words Research, Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability.
They also signed Beatriz Becerra, general director of the Advanced Information Technology and Telematic Services Company (CITMATEL), and Adrián Gómez, director of Inversiones GAMMA SA, a Cuban mercantile company for the commercialization of high value-added professional services.
According to ACN, these three structures form the Governing Council with the purpose of founding the Board of Directors of the Foundation.
The institution arose from the need to energize the connections between the mechanisms that contribute capital and the subjects that intervene in the execution of actions related to environmental protection, the pursuit of which faces important barriers, including the US blockade/embargo. according to ACN.
One of its essential purposes in this sense consists in the creation of its own or related capacities that allow the nascent organization to be recognized as an Accredited National Entity before the Green Climate Fund and other sources of climate financing.
