From the “Vice Chancellor’s Report to Council” 2006/2007

INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) implemented several regionally significant projects and programmes during 2006/2007. An important one of these was the UNEP Integrated Assessment Programme. This Programme integrates social, economic and environmental information into a single decision support process.

Jamaica was one of six countries chosen to field-test the new integrated Assessment Methodology. The results of the field test are now being used to fine-tune the IA Methodology before it Is deployed world-wide by UNEP A second large activity was the Summit of the Americas Programme, the ultimate output of which will be policy guidance for sustainable development In the Americas over the next decade. The institute also implemented several projects through its Hospitality and Tourism Unit.

These included: an Assessment of the Marketing Potential of Agro-Tourism in Jamaica; an Assessment of Water Availability on Tourism Development in Small Island States; and, the Development of a High-end Caribbean Jewellery Business for the Tourism Market in the Caribbean. ISD has obtained initial funding from the Global Environmental Facility for the development of a Programme on Adaptation Strategies for Climate Change. The Programme will be implemented by a Consortium of five regional Institutions, led by the ISD on behalf of the UWI, and will be of three years' duration.

ISD placed considerable emphasis on developing collaborative research networks during 2006/2007. Members of the networks include the Caribbean Academy of Science, the University of Technology in Jamaica, the School of Engineering

at the University of Surrey, the Institute for Studies of Science, Technology and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh, the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research at the University of St. Andrew, the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Cartesius Institute of the Netherlands, the  Caribbean Maritime Institute, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Jamaica. ISD continued to place strong emphasis on the training of PhD students during the review period a number of whom graduated in 2007.

In 2007/2006, the ISD will continue to meet its current project commitments but will position itself institutionally to play a more direct and explicit role in regional development. Leaders of CARICOM delegations who have met with UWI teams have confirmed that international agencies typicality work with national Units to execute the agencies' development mandates, but emphasise that national Units are overwhelmed and cannot implement the development initiatives effectively. The ISD will therefore Increase its engagement with all international agencies with development mandates in the Caribbean (e.g. UNER UNOP UNESCO, IOC. USAID. CIDA, DIFID) and assist them in executting their regional mandates. The ISO has already begun to assist Caribbean countries with the Implementation of activities relevant to the Barbados (Mauritius) Plan of Action, and in meeting their obligations under some of the
varied Conventions and Protocols to which the countries are signatories (e.g. CBD, SPAW. Blosafety, MARPOL, among others).