CHARLESTOWN Nevis, February 7th, 2013 - Preparation of sub-regional meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis, May 2013, for discussing and validating analysis and proposals aimed at supporting environmental policy formulation and planning in the Caribbean region.
Background
UNESCO is committed to support national adaptation policies to climate change in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean. In view of its comprehensive and wide-ranging implications, global environmental change must be recognized as an essentially social process.
By contrast, environmental challenges have too often been framed as costs to be borne and technologies to be discovered, which neglects the opportunities and co-benefits associated with serious engagement with their social and human dimensions, as understood through the social and human sciences knowledge base. Furthermore, environmental challenges are too often addressed sectorally, whereas only an integrated policy framework, grounded in an interdisciplinary knowledge base, can do justice to their implications.
Policy analysis and planning for social dimensions of environmental change require employment of an inter-disciplinary approach and thorough consideration of social data and its integrated analytical frameworks. However, adoption of such approaches is impeded by fragmented production and low utilization of social data, which furthermore often derive from inadequate conceptual or methodological frameworks.
To redress the situation, there is a need for multi-stakeholder efforts to improve the quality, availability and usage of research and data through enhanced social science cooperation. In addition to encouraging more dynamic and policy-relevant exchange about concepts, paradigms and methods, such cooperation will serve to foster data user - data producer dialogue, and advancement of environment data literacy of policy practitioners for both in-government and outsourced analysis.
UNESCO is devoted to support priorities defined by its Caribbean Member States in the context of United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs) that explicitly incorporate frameworks for collaboration in the social dimensions of global environmental change.
UNESCO is also committed to assist in following- up the recommendations of the regional UNESCO Conference on “Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean: Science, Ethics and Policies” organized in 2011, St Kitts and Nevis, which were subsequently reflected by the 36Th General Conference of UNESCO that invited “the Director-General to reflect Caribbean regional science priorities in the implementation of the Programme and Budget for 2012-2013, with respect specifically to … activities implemented through the intergovernmental Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme to promote and support regional scientific cooperation in the social and human sciences directed at analysis of climate change impacts and of the policy challenges raised by adaptation thereto”. (36 C/Res. 67, paragraph 4(a) (ii))
UNESCO is currently planning to commission two main analytical reports in this field to institutions based in the Caribbean:
1. A sub-regional analysis consisting of the following components: a) analysis of social research and data gap for evidence-based policy formulation and planning for social dimensions of environmental change; b) mapping of sub-regional and national social science stakeholders; c) proposal for the development and operationalization of a sub-regional multi-stakeholder social science platform
2. Roadmap for the establishment of a social science- based Clearing House/Knowledge Management Hub suitable to be integrated into other sustainability- oriented clearing houses in the Caribbean
A crucial step in the process will be the discussion and validation of the aforementioned reports during a sub- regional meeting with the participation of researchers, government officials and representatives of civil society, UN agencies, and sub- regional entities of cooperation, for which the following proposal is submitted to the attention of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO.
This project in the Caribbean is regarded in UNESCO as a first sub-regional step/phase on which other similar projects in other sub-regions will be based later on.
Objective and type of UNESCO’s support to the sub- regional meeting
UNESCO will support the St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO through an Activity Financing Contract for the organization of a sub- regional meeting on “Environmental policy formulation and planning in the Caribbean region” to be held in May 2013, in Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The main objective of the meeting will be the discussion and validation of reports commissioned by UNESCO through exchanges among researchers, government officials and representatives of civil society, UN agencies, and sub- regional entities of cooperation.
This project in the Caribbean is regarded in UNESCO as a first sub-regional step/phase on which other similar projects in other sub-regions will be based later on.
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