Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Virtual Side Event Application
Application Deadline: March 8, 2024
Link for onsite application for a virtual side event
Event: Wednesday May 29, 11-12:30 pm EST
Registration Link: https://yorku.ca/go/may29globalwatertalk
Title: Blueprints for Prosperity: Building resilience in SIDS through blue economy innovation
Applying Organization: United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)
Partner Organizations: NOVA School of Business & Economics, York University
Sustainable economic growth is inherently tied to freshwater security. Climate change and extreme events, such as storms, droughts, heatwaves, and rising sea levels, further exacerbate freshwater insecurity. The economies of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are especially vulnerable owing to their small sizes, remoteness, freshwater scarcity, and high susceptibility to extreme climatic events and global economic markets. This panel aims to highlight the economic impacts of disruption to water systems across SIDS, including the Seychelles, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Cape Verde, while also sharing important learned lessons and transferable solutions to sustainable economic growth from larger island states that share similar struggles, including the Philippines and Singapore. Notably, our panel will include remarks from the UN Assistant Secretary-General and ambassadors from SIDS, while also sharing trans-disciplinary research and lived experiences, to shed light on freshwater security against the backdrop of climatic change and global efforts to boost ambition, transdisciplinary, and cross-boundary action on sustained economic adaptation and growth.
Invited:
Yvonne Su, York U - confirmed
Catarina Fonseca, IRC Wash - confirmed
William Cheung, UBC - confirmed - climate change impacts on SIDS
Kalim Shah, U. of Delaware -confirmed
Luísa Nobre, Economics and Finance at NovaSBE - confirmed
Proposed Agenda
Host of the Panel: Professor Sapna Sharma, Academic Director, UNITAR Global Water Academy, Professor, York University (5 min)
- Audience interaction. This time, I don’t think we really have enough time to cycle back during the presentation to share answers to any specific questions. Also, all the questions I came up with might be too specific given how specific the subject matter is here, and might exclude too many people. Given that we want to start emphasizing stories around the world, I thought it might be interesting to ask the audience to share any stories they have about an experience with water scarcity/insecurity, and we could tell them that we will compile submissions in a summary that we will put up on the website in our “stories” section.
Opening Remarks:
Representative from UNITAR: Mr. Nikhil Seth, Executive Director, UNITAR; UN Assistant Secretary-General (TBC) (5 min)
Representative from UGWA at York University: Dr. Rhonda Lenton, President and Vice-Chancellor, York University (5 min)
Ms. Claudia Taboada, Director, Science, Technology, and Environment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dominican Republic
Professor William Cheung, Director, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia (10 min)
Dr. William Cheung is a Professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, the University of British Columbia. He is a Canada Research Chair in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change. He studies the nexus of food-climate-biodiversity in the ocean. He is the Principal Investigator of the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC. He serves as Director for a 6-year SSHRC Partnership “Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus”. He is an international leader in developing and using scenarios and models to explore solution options and pathways to desirable and sustainable ocean futures. His work addresses policy-relevant research questions and cuts across multiple disciplines, from oceanography to ecology, economics and social sciences. His research ranges from local to global scales. He is actively involved in international and regional initiatives that bridge science and policy. For instance, he was a Coordinating Lead Author in the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in the Changing Climate and core author of the Synthesis Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment.
- Climate change impacts on SIDS, particularly as it relates to diversity, fisheries
- Management tradeoffs associated with conservation.
- Policy-relevant priorities for management that factors in social equity in planning for sustainability.
- Scenarios and modeling. Climate change and fish stocks. Analyze changes in ocean conditions (warming and oxygen), particularly those that are relevant to ecosystems and fish stocks.
- Focus on south pacific SIDS and more generally globally as well
Dr. Catarina Fonseca, IRC Associate, IRC-WASH, Director of Pulsing Tide (10 min)
- Expertise in financial models and financing access to water supply and sanitation
- Could talk about debt-for-nature/climate swaps (SIDS can be forgiven of debts if they commit the value of the debt to investment in climate/environmental infrastructure/systems/action plans).
- Blue Bonds in the Seychelles.
- She could discuss these examples and cover what is required to access them.
- Could talk about the cost of in-action on the threats to water.
- Climate risk and finance. How do we pay for the solutions. WHere does the funding and money come from.
Professor Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor, Department of Equity Studies, York University (10 min)
- Migration and international development scholar
- Expertise in post-disaster recovery and climate change adaptation will be particularly of interest for this panel, as both are important considerations for SIDS and their relationship to water.
- Social capital angle might be of interest, particularly when discussing transferable solutions from larger island nations like the Philippines.
- Focus on international development looking at post disaster recovery and climate adaptation in the Philippines.
- Climate migration and mobility. Can draw on work in the Philippines.
- 5-8 years for water connection (had to get water from trucks in the meantime
Professor Kalim U. Shah, Associate Professor, Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware (10 min)
- Can speak to policy, regulation, institutions and governance in SIDS (US Policy in the Caribbean, Pacific, and African/Indian Ocean)
- Can draw from perspectives on environmental and climate change policy, including angles on risk, tourism, local industry, and ramifications for the economy.
- Would be nice to include a perspective on corporate sustainability and private sector intersectionality with environmental governance in SIDS.
- Majority of work in Islands and SIDS. Public Policy and Governance side.
- Socioeconomic energy-related issues. Has some experience with climate mitigation and adaptation as well.
- Written climate change policy for SIDS countries (caribbean, pacific, indian ocean)
- Could present something more on the public-private partnerships for a blue economy
- Just completed a report on that topic for the caribbean region for international development bank
Panel Discussion: I thought the discussion format for the plastics panel was really good where everyone had a chance to respond to a question in a very short format. Here, I thought we could focus the discussion around all the panelists answering one question posed by the host:
(10 min)
- Options for leading question, provided to panelists in advance:
Data-driven decision making and the SDGs. How can data contribute to the development of this theme?
"If you could only choose one, what is the most important policy initiative, investment priority, or research need that SIDS could focus on to improve prospects for economic development and water management.”
Or
“What do you believe is the single most important threat to water security in Small Island Developing States Globally, and what is the one thing you would do to combat it”
Closing Remarks:
Host of the Panel: Professor Sapna Sharma, Academic Director, UNITAR Global Water Academy, Professor, York University
Potential Structure for Panel:
- Thinking of a more traditional structure for this one with a progression from presentation of the challenges that SIDS face, through to discussions of potential solutions, concluding the policy-specific action that is transdisciplinary and cross boundary.
- If we have more speakers to move through, too much jumping around might take up too much of our time.
- If everyone has 10 minutes, we’d already be at 70 for the session, and that is assuming nobody goes over.
- Ambassadors need to go first anyway, so it would be nice if they could speak to the situations in their respective countries (draw from Seychelles, Dominican Republic).
- If they could cite any potential economic impacts to their respective countries associated with water resources that would be ideal. Could say something in either causal direction, how economic hardship has made their relationship to water more challenging, or how disturbance has influenced water supply/access and how that has affected their nation’s economy.
- This would provide examples that would set the stage for subsequent presentations
- Could lead with WIlliam Cheung.
- Experience seems quite broad in terms of climate change impacts on resources important in SIDS, including diversity and fisheries
- If he has any specific water examples that would be an asset.
- This presentation could transition from the examples provided by the ambassadors, and put things in a general framework/context that correspond to his interests: management trade-offs in conservation, issues of social equity in sustainability planning
- Would set the stage for management/policy/governance recommendations from other panelists.
- Catarina Fonseca
- Could get into the details of financial models and financing access to water supply and sanitation in SIDS
- Mentioned really interesting programs that encouragement management of these kinds of resources, such as debt-for-nature/climate swaps, blue bonds
- Will have examples of this progressive type of management and is a nice transition into pathways to solving issues.
- Yvonne Su
- Could continue the development of management solutions for the session by talking about post-disaster recovery as it pertains to water resources, and the necessity of climate change adaptation for these nations to thrive.
- Can cite examples of larger island nations and where they have seen successful.
- Tie these ideas back to the SIDS, emphasizing common challenges, and how proven approaches can be applied there.
- Kalim U. Shah
- Further develop ideas surrounding policy, regulation, governance, drawing perspectives from environmental and climate change policy.
- Stated research interests in risk, tourism, local industry, and ramifications for the economy (has examples from US policy in the caribbean, Pacific, and african indian ocean. Depending on where the ambassadors are from, maybe he can tailor his examples to regions that either overlap geographically or face similar challenges.
- Would be nice to pull in private sector examples, which is a stated research interest of his, and which would connect nicely to module 9 of the flagship course
- We could potentially excerpt from this for that module.
- Could wrap up with each panelist talking about the single most important issue that could be the focus of SIDS based policy (see above). Nice way to quickly summarize this action within the context of considering an overall action plan for SIDS nations.
- Focus on potentially common themes and areas of management focus for financial sustainability and economic growth
- Could be led by the host (Sapna)
- Would be the beginning of a potential synthesis, which could be valuable for use as a potential video clip in the Flagship Course.
Needs:
York-UGWA Team
- Do we want to have audience participation for this event? If so, will it be in the form of a poll? What will the question be? Do we want to include something in the presentation that collates audience comments/feedback?
- (Hillary) I like the idea of capturing participant stories through the webinar, maybe this could also mimic the question we would pose to the speakers by asking the audience to share an important policy initiative or investment priority from their context? This would give us material to work with for the website and/or a course module
- See below for present roster of speakers with proposed orders
- (Hillary) Order looks good to me
- Check on the times as listed
- (Hillary) All times add up to 85 mins, leaving 5 mins as a buffer and for concluding comments.
- Sapna: This doesn’t give us much wiggle room. As you remember from the plastic pollution event, we thought we had 30 minutes for questions. I think that for this panel - we need to ask speakers to prepare a 7-8 minute speech and at 8 minutes, we let them know their time is up.
UNITAR
- Modify posters to clarify the final list of speakers
- Remove notes from the list of speakers
- Follow up with Stephen on the status of Seychelles and Dominican Republic Ambassadors.
- Advertising schedule. Suggest: May 15, 22, 28
York U Tech Team
- Send concept note and tentative list of speakers (ready by Friday)
- Add an email opt out option to RSVP registration link (discuss Friday)
- (Hillary) Possibly send email to past registrants with an opt-in option for all future updates from UGWA, including events?
- INitialize the list of panelists, giving each speaker a unique log-in (provide Friday)
- Schedule a practice session (May 22nd?)
- Discuss Zoom translation and ask Sylvie to join to test it out.
- Ensure that Record option is selected
- Discuss advertising. Suggest May 15, 22, 28
- Advertise through OneWater, Dadeleh, CIFAL, Lassonde, York Listserv/York-UGWA mailing list
- (Hillary) Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change would be another YorkU listserv to advertise through
- Ask them to design something or we can provide the poster from UNITAR once modified.
Speakers
- Finalize our ideas for speaker order and what each will ideally contribute
- schedule meeting with speakers for Week of May 13 to coordinate messages and request speaker bios. Can give them access to our Google sheet
- schedule a check-in (by email) with all speakers on May 24 to see where they stand with their work
- Request slides be sent to us May 28 by noon so we can forward to tech team
- Request bio