Photo credit: Tim Ross/Wikimedia
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean face significant environmental challenges, compounded by their vulnerability to climate change impacts. Addressing wide-ranging challenges including biodiversity loss, land degradation, deforestation, water scarcity, food insecurity, and waste management concerns in a lasting way are critical imperatives for these nations.
Learning from what neighboring islands are doing, including through work funded by the Global Environment Facility, can help Caribbean SIDS find durable solutions to the similar challenges they face.
This was the focus of a GEF Expanded Constituency Workshop and Regional Adaptation Workshop for the Caribbean, which in March brought together more than 120 people from 16 Caribbean countries, for five days of workshops focused on South-South learning.
Hosted by the Government of the Dominican Republic, these workshops aimed to facilitate inclusive engagement, share best practices, and enhance skills for the preparation and implementation of GEF projects and programs. Participants seized numerous opportunities to learn from fellow island states including during a field visit to a GEF-funded project where best practices in forest fire management, sustainable land management, land use planning, and biodiversity mainstreaming were highlighted.
Peter Lallas, General Manager of the GEF, said the workshops reflected a commitment to helping support strong outcomes from projects, including the sharing of successes and lessons learned so other countries can benefit from work to date. “We have a laser focus on learning from each other for higher results,” he said.
Presentation on fire management efforts at the Expanded Constituency Workshop. Photo credit: Global Environment Facility
Forest fire management has emerged as a pressing concern around the world, including in the Caribbean following a recent surge in incidents across the region. To increase the country’s resilience to these threats, the Dominican Republic is taking proactive measures through a GEF-funded project. The UNDP-implemented project supports improved forest fire management in three pilot sites emphasizing early warning systems based on geospatial data, brigade formation, and capacity building. This initiative has yielded promising results, with a decrease in impacted hectares despite a rise in the number of fires in 2023. Scaling this pilot to a national level will demonstrate the efficacy of such interventions. Discussions at the workshop highlighted the need to also monitor biodiversity impacts alongside forest fire management efforts, indicating a potential area for future collaboration and research.
Another major focus of the workshops was agriculture production, a cornerstone of many Caribbean economies, which faces threats from climate change, land degradation, and water scarcity. In the Dominican Republic, sustainable cocoa production is a particular concern, addressed through the GEF project that supports initiatives like the Farmer Field Schools in Yamasa, Monte Plata Province. Women participating in the Farmer Field Schools said their key challenge was climate change, and that they were empowered by learning from the school to improve their cocoa production by applying a range of techniques to enhance resilience to climate change.
Presentation by cacao farmers. Photo credit: Global Environment Facility
Throughout the sessions, energy resilience for climate adaptation emerged as another critical area, with Belize sharing its efforts to enhance system resilience and emergency response capabilities, with lessons for other Caribbean countries in the context of climate change. Challenges related to coordination among multiple institutions engaged in the project as well as expanding capacity building opportunities on energy resilience within Belize. Examples included capacity building in areas such as enhancing system resilience of long-term energy planning for climate adaptation, by collecting meteorological and hydrological data, integrating weather data into the hydro model, and using and manipulating software. Fred John, the CEO of the Dominica Geothermal Risk Mitigation II project participated in the workshop to learn from the project in Belize to develop a similar project in Dominica.
Finally, participants were introduced to an initiative to establish a SIDS-SIDS Green-Blue Economy Knowledge Transfer Hub in the Caribbean, collaborating with the University of the West Indies. This hub aims to enhance knowledge exchange and application within academia and local communities, promoting a systematic approach for extracting and translating green-blue knowledge elements related to GEF projects. Additional exchanges took place on other GEF projects, including building climate resilience of urban systems through Ecosystem-based adaptation in Latin America and the Caribbean and climate change adaptation in the Eastern Caribbean fisheries sector. Such cross-learning opportunities are integral to fostering holistic approaches to climate adaptation and resilience building.
Looking forward, the GEF will continue to promote mutual learning and collaboration among Caribbean small island states as a core part of its mission to generate global environmental benefits in an integrated and inclusive way.
“This is a key priority in our strategy for knowledge management and learning that was recently approved by the GEF Council. We will continue to bolster knowledge management and learning in every project and program the GEF invests in, from design through to implementation, with an emphasis on South-South exchange for maximum effect,” said Mohamed Bakarr, Manager of the GEF’s Integration and Knowledge Management Division.
“Small island states have tremendous amounts to gain from learning from one another, and working with the GEF partnership to harness collective expertise and innovative solutions. This will be a major theme at the upcoming 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States, and will be a significant component of our funding and support in the years ahead, to ensure that SIDS are maximally equipped to confront the challenges presented by climate change and other environmental threats, and to build a more resilient future for generations to come,” Bakarr said.
