Linnette Vassel, Guest Columnist
EVERY DAY as citizens we hear reports through various media of different international conferences being held and agreements being made about a variety of issues - trade, health, terrorism and security, human rights, the environment, to name a few. More often than not, Jamaica participates in these conferences but the issues rarely come down to us in communities and most of the time, most of us could not care less because somehow we are not clear on how they affect us.
The theme for the year of my home church, Webster Memorial United, is "Beyond Business as Usual" a theme which, I believe, is applicable to all of us as citizens at this time. One aspect of this is to commit to becoming more aware of how our survival and development individually and collectively are affected by issues that we have hitherto seen as global and beyond the scope of our actions. That awareness should lead to our greater involvement in local community and national action for development. Consequently, informing ourselves on the special issues that face us as citizens of a small island developing state is a good starting point.
Some five per cent of the world's population live in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the regions of Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the Mediterranean. Generally we are low-lying territories of small land masses and small populations like the 2.6 million of us who live here on the rock. As a grouping, SIDS are vulnerable to a host of perils including global climate changes, natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes and the degradation and pollution of coastal, marine and fresh water resources.
The biodiversity of our nations is threatened by the fragility of our island eco-systems and linked to a history deformed by colonialism and its present day manifestation many of the SIDS economies remain highly dependent on imports, for example, of food, energy resources, and technologies. Our people are among those whose development is constantly threatened by poverty in all its forms, despite the signs of progress that are evident.
At a national level, countries such as ours have taken steps to address many of the vulnerabilities at the level of legal, policy, institutional and programmatic initiatives. For example, a number of measures and programmes are in place involving the public sector, and civil society, including local communities dealing with issues such as disaster preparedness, and the protection of coastal and marine resources and watersheds. However, for a long time both at the local and national levels, we have not sufficiently integrated these issues into a sustainable development framework one that links the realities of what it means to be an island nation into how we develop and manage all our resources and shape relationships to sustain ourselves in our environment now and into the future.
IMPLICATIONS FOR HOST ISSUES
This has implications for a host of issues, including how we transform our governance systems and relationships and at all levels. Regrettably although there have been improvements, there are still a host of factors which undermine our best efforts to forge an integrative partnership approach to sustainable development. At the regional and global levels, however, the common challenges we face have influenced the formation of a common identity as SIDS and a growing determination among this far-flung grouping to seek common approaches to issues. This influenced the dialogue and conclusions of the watershed 1992 Rio Conference which, by linking issues of the environment and development, gave impetus to the sustainable development framework and to the formulation of Agenda 21- a comprehensive framework for sustainable human development which focuses on critical concerns of the developing world including SIDS.
The 1994 conference on the Sustainable Development of SIDS held in Barbados within the framework of the decisions of Agenda 21, established in the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) specific actions and strategies to address SIDS issues. This year from late August to September the United Nations will hold in Mauritius, a comprehensive review of the implementation of the BPOA. This will chart the course for global action which will bring into focus commitments along the way, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs 2000) and the conclusions of the World Summit on Social Development (WSSD), 2002 - all of which speak specifically to the issues of small islands' vulnerabilities and how to promote sustainable development. Just thinking about the different streams of discussions and recommendations, is enough to confuse us. However, becoming familiar with the eight MDGs and their targets can help us to examine in our context, strategies to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.
Further we can examine the inter-relationships between the various goals and targets and see how they play out in our specific communities for a start and at the national level.
From my perspective, what will be important will be for our country and region and the SIDS as a whole to agree on practical actions that specifically address the needs of the majority of our peoples; actions that in themselves can become strategies to interconnect various items of the agenda, for example, linking development and participation and issues of gender and social equity in ways that can be dynamic and sustaining. For me, one of those priority practical actions cum strategy lies in expanding the provision of water and sanitation services, particularly among our rural populations and citizens in informal settlements.
A focus on Water and Sanitation and Hygiene promotion (WASH) in my view, can constitute a strategic response to the critical long-standing as well as new and emerging issues facing Small Island Developing States.
Linnette Vassell is a consultant on development issues. E-mails may be sent to cvas@cwjamaica.com
