Designers from Spain, Morocco and Ukraine win OSCE competition highlighting security risks of climate change

Winners of crowdsourcing competition announced

To help raise awareness about security risks linked to climate change, the OSCE launched an international contest in partnership with eYeka, a global community of talented creators, to find a compelling image that conveys the important message that climate change increases the risk of conflict.

I was impressed by the diversity and high standard of contest entries, which I believe show the commitment of people across the OSCE region and beyond to tackle climate change. My sincere thanks go to all of the contributors for their creative efforts to portray this serious threat to security confronting us today.

Lamberto Zannier OSCE Secretary General

Climate change not only affects the environment. It is also a “threat multiplier,” worsening existing threats to security and environmental stress. Increased competition over natural resources, more frequent extreme weather events and natural disasters, disruption of food production – these are just some of the impacts of climate change that can contribute to conflict and social and economic decline at the local, regional and global levels.

A crowdsourcing competition was held in the run-up to an OSCE Security Days event devoted to climate change and security. The competition attracted 125 contributions from OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation.

We are delighted that the OSCE provided us with the opportunity to address one of the most critical challenges that humanity is facing. Organizations that co-create with people give themselves the opportunity to become more relevant, and they help create a better world by acknowledging people’s voices.

Francois Petavy eYeka CEO

First prize

 

A photo posted by OSCE (@osceorg) on Oct 12, 2015 at 8:22am PDT

Fran Hdez from Spain takes home the first prize with a piece entitled ‘Dangerous Deals’, which makes clear the link between climate change and security risks. He said he wanted to create an image which “stays in the memory of whoever sees it.”

Second prize

 

A photo posted by OSCE (@osceorg) on Oct 15, 2015 at 1:10am PDT

Samira Rafi from Morocco, an OSCE Partner state, won the second prize. With Samira’s visual, she wanted to “show through the symbolism of the hourglass the urgency and the time factor that we must act quickly.”

Third prize

 

A photo posted by OSCE (@osceorg) on Oct 12, 2015 at 8:25am PDT

Aghidel from Ukraine takes third place. Aghidel wanted to juxtapose the “defenselessness of a child with the ravages of the insatiable consumption of resources, air and water pollution, deforestation, and more.”

Further details on the competition can be found here: https://en.eyeka.com/contests/9116

Security Days: Climate Change and Security - Unprecedented impacts, unpredictable risks

The competition was held in the run-up to an OSCE Security Days event devoted to climate change and security, which will take place on 28 October 2015 in Vienna. The event, which is open to the public, will bring together senior representatives of governments, regional and international organizations, NGOs, academia, philanthropy, business and entrepreneurs for an open, interactive discussion on the most effective approaches to counteracting the security risks of climate change.

The Security Days discussions can be followed using the hashtag #secdays on OSCE Twitter and on Facebook.

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