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(L-R) Ambassador Benin, Ambassador of United States to Unesco, Antonio Maynard-Secretary General of St.Kitts, Secretary General of Mauritius and permanent delegate of St.Kitts and Nevis, |
(Basseterre; St. Kitts): The Federation was well represented and articulate about its concerns relating to small island developing states (SIDS) at the the 175th session of UNESCO's Executive Board, held in Paris between 27 September and 12 October.
The Executive Board, chaired by Chinese Vice-Minister of Education, Zhang Xinsheng, meets twice yearly at the Paris headquarters to discuss the Organization's priorities in terms of work programme and the budget resources needed to implement its activities, encompassing 190 Member Countries. Last year, St. Kitts and Nevis was appointed to the Board for a 4-year term until 2009.
The Delegation from St. Kitts and Nevis, led by Antonio Maynard, secretary-general of the Federation's National Commission for UNESCO, and Dr. David Doyle, the Permanent Delegate to UNESCO based in Paris, were more than content to see the highlighted reference to SIDS mentioned in the final conclusions to the Executive Board session.
The UNESCO director general was seized by the 58 members states represented on the Board to "provide support to small island developing states (SIDS) in line with the Mauritius Declaration and the Mauritius Strategy".
~~Adz:Right~~"This was a significant achievement for us", says Mr Maynard, "And is the outcome of a year's efforts here in Paris, and in the Caribbean region, to galvanise more support for the UNESCO SIDS programme". The Mauritius Strategy put in place, for the first time in the UN history, some very specific actions and implementation mechanisms in favour of sustainable development of SIDS."
The Declaration of 2005 calls for action in many fields related to UNESCO's concerns, programmes and priorities, explained Mr Maynard, "such as areas of core concerns to St. Kitts and Nevis like climate change, tourism resources, health, and specifically HIV/AIDS, information and communications technologies, culture, trade and security"
In his two interventions to the UNESCO Executive Board, Mr Maynard underlined the critical importance of UNESCOs capacity building expertise focused on SIDS to guide the Federation to respond to challenges of globalisation, natural disasters, climate change and the environment. He urged the director-general, and the other 57 UNESCO member States, to keep the 2005 Mauritius Strategy for the further implementation of the Programme of Action for the sustainable development of SIDS. tt the top of the UNESCO agenda.
He added that this should include the need for fostering intersectorality.
"The provision of its highly focused and regionally-relevant policy advice and capacity-building guidance is welcome, stated Mr Maynard, and went on to say that "..., education for sustainable development at all levels is a particularly poignant component of the UNESCO mandate".
"We urge the Director-General to give SIDS a highlighted presence in his work programme. Specifically, we call for SIDS-related themes of education, science, and ICTs for sustainable development to be further elaborated and disseminated".
~~Adz:Left~~After the Executive Board session, Mr Maynard shared views with the other SIDS member states represented on the Board, namely Fiji, Bahamas, Cuba, Mauritius, and St. Vincent & Grenadines, and stressed the need for further action by UNESCO on the access and proper use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in SIDS.
"ICT plays a critical role in enabling access to information and communication to all parts of the community, and contribute to good governance and to enhance learning and education at all levels. We need to harness ICT to address effectively the needs of the least developing countries, of small island developing states (SIDS), as well as address the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters".
On a separate initiative related to SIDS launched on the fringes of the Executive Board, Dr Doyle, who has been active behind the scenes in Paris in building up the support of other SIDS member states via their diplomatic missions in Paris and Brussels, called for a special ad hoc SIDS Member Country meeting on 4 October.
This was attended by Permanent Delegates, Ambassadors, Ministers and SIDS representatives from the Bahamas, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Kitts & Nevis, Cuba, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Fiji.
The meeting was successful in securing agreement on the creation of an informal SIDS Committee at UNESCO, to be co-chaired by Dr. David Doyle and Ms. Indira Savitree Thacoor-Sidaya, Permanent Delegates, respectively, of St. Kitts & Nevis and Mauritius to UNESCO. Dr. Doyle, who acted as the chairperson of the ad hoc SIDS meeting, highlighted the importance of raising SIDS on the UNESCO agenda, in the face of adverse economies of scale of island states in general, but also resulting from a range of more recent geo-political and economic challenges arising from globalisation; unfavourable trade rulings, particularly in relation to economically important crops for SIDS such as bananas and sugar; the emergence of low cost production in India and China leading to increased economic competition; inadequate resources to ensure a strong, sustainable voice for the individual state in bilateral and multilateral discussions.
Says Dr Doyle "this is hugely important as an initiative and significant in the context of the UN system as small Island developing States make up one fifth of UNESCO Member States. I see the dedicated SIDS committee at UNESCO, with St. Kitts and Nevis playing a central role, acting as a catalyst for a common understanding and highlighted awareness of the challenges facing SIDS".
The objectives of the SIDS committee initiative at UNESCO were articulated by Dr Doyle in the following terms:
- To galvanize the rich depository of information and expertise within UNESCO, of relevance to SIDS Member Countries, with regard to natural sciences, culture, social and human sciences and information communication and technologies;
- To utilize the SIDS committee to examine, disseminate and share this information vis-à-vis all relevant stakeholders in islands, permanent delegates, national commissions etc;
- To provide a more informed position on policies and matters relevant to SIDS and UNESCO, especially with a view to advising national commissions;
- To increase the leveraging position of SIDS at Executive Board level, and its subsidiary committees, and ensure that SIDS speak with one voice across UNESCO on their core concerns.
UNESCO secretariat sources close to the SIDS programme of work commented that the ad hoc meeting proved very useful for early exchanges among SIDS thus facilitating follow-up moves by them. It resulted, among others, in the inclusion of SIDS as a priority in the Executive Board's conclusion document endorsed by the 58 member States.
~~Adz:Right~~Mr. Doyle believes that, over time, this SIDS committee will lead to the strengthening of support for, and ensuring more targeted outcomes, associated with, the Mauritius Declaration and the Mauritius Strategy. He commended the efforts of UNESCO in contributing to the sustainable development of SIDS, as highlighted in the six-page "UNESCO embarking on Mauritius Strategy, published in September 2005.
The UNESCO SIDS initiative arose out of the Barbados Conference of April-May 1994 and concluded with a published 131-page "Island Agenda: An overview of UNESCO's work on island environments, territories and societies". While the earlier focus was mainly on issues related to environmental/natural sciences, UNESCO has since taken a more socio-cultural approach to addressing sustainable development in islands, with focus on new and emerging issues such as access to ICTs, impact of HIV/AIDS and culture.
UNESCO has contributed significantly to the forward-planning process associated with the review of the 1994 Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA) for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and to the International UN Meeting in Mauritius (January 2005), through events that highlighted the role of culture, youth visioning for island living, communities in action, ocean and coastal management, and a civil society forum. In the past decade, UNESCO has been very instrumental in adding an entire chapter on culture and strong references to youth in the Mauritius Strategy.
In terms of progress, in September 2005, a six-page booklet "Embarking on Mauritius Strategy Implementation" was published by UNESCO[1], providing glimpses of the Organization's initial activities in support of the implementation of the Mauritius Strategy. In October 2005, the General Conference adopted a resolution on "Further implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS)', following examination of a draft resolution by all five programme commissions.
Specific projects were launched led by CSI include Youth Visioning for Island Living - where the third phase of follow-up project implementation is now underway in the islands - Sandwatch and Small Islands Voice. More recent activities within the framework of Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) included a pilot exercise to reinforce indigenous knowledge transmission in Solomon Island classrooms.
Conducted in villages in Marovo Lagoon in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (September 2005), this pilot serves to develop guidelines for classroom use of the recently-published LINKS sourcebook that is wholly based on local ecological knowledge, entitled "Reef and Rainforest: An Environmental Encyclopedia of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands". An interactive CD-ROM entitled "The Canoe Is the People: Indigenous Navigation in the Pacific" was launched at the UNESCO General Conference (October 2005).
Since early 2005, the Coasts and Small Islands (CSI) Platform (SIDS focal point) has been working on generating relevant inputs from all programme sectors (both at UNESCO's Paris HQ and in the field offices and particularly those serving one or several SIDS nations such as Apia, Bangkok, Dakar, Dar-es-Salaam, Doha, Jakarta, Kingston, Havana, Libreville, Montevideo, Nairobi, New Delhi, Port au Prince) that relate to the Mauritius Strategy.
St. Kitts and Nevis will increasingly play an integral and pivotal role in the follow up actions in implementing the Mauritius Strategy, through the efforts of Mr Maynard and Dr. Doyle.
List of UN SIDS member Countries
* denotes LDCs - least developing countries
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20 |
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21 |
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22 |
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25 |
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26 |
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27 |
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28 |
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36 |
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37 |
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