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Image: SVG Europe
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SIDS are developing innovative partnerships to bring climate action to the forefront of global discourse. In April 2022, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and FIFA signed a two-year partnership to combat climate change during the FIFA Congress in Doha. In July 2022, Pacific Islands Forum Leaders declared a climate change emergency in the Pacific, and the dialogue supported new ways of elevating regional climate change priorities to the international community. Now, PIFS and FIFA have jointly launched a 12-month plan to implement their partnership and turn their commitment into concrete climate action through an innovative approach to climate advocacy leveraging the global influence of football.
The partnership will be focused on using football diplomacy to educate and raise awareness on climate change and disaster resilience, as well as improving infrastructure through the lens of football. One component will be in creating a climate change literacy program for schools, including training to support climate change awareness by FIFA Legends. This will also include a joint communications and advocacy plan leading up to COP 27 and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. This partnership is an example of SIDS enhancing their existing infrastructure to make it more climate resilient, with a focus on climate proofing football development to mobilize finance for building resilience in the region, including support for the Pacific Resilience Facility fund.
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Image: Velvet
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As we highlighted in our previous special edition bulletin on digital transformation, SIDS are leading the implementation of digital in the context of the SAMOA Pathway, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and in pursuit of national development goals and other global priorities. Digital is already a key driver of SIDS' development, foundational to tackling climate change, and a key tool that can shape new industries and opportunities in SIDS as digital technologies can enhance SIDS’ participation in global and regional markets. Digital can also catalyse the Blue Economy, public services, and digital products and services which could continue to improve financial inclusion across SIDS. The integration of sustainable development in digital is key to fostering a green recovery that drives inclusive digital capacity and access, enhances open data, and accelerates innovations that boost the efficiency of technologies and alleviate their environmental impact.
As SIDS are in the midst of a 'Triple C' of crises - Climate Change, COVID-19, and Conflict, pre-existing bottlenecks in SIDS’ e-commerce ecosystem have been reinforced. Despite SIDS’ common challenges to digital transformation which include limited access to affordable infrastructure, SIDS are working hard to leverage the potential of digital economy. In order to foster the digital economy of SIDS, more efforts are still needed to improve financial services, promote economic empowerment of vulnerable groups, support the development of e-government, facilitate e-commerce, and boost disaster resilience.
In order to help enhance and foster their digital economy, 38 SIDS will be working on strengthening their capacities in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia and the Pacific to adopt trade policies that develop the digital economy and enhance crisis responses. This will help in developing the skills and knowledge of targeted SIDS’ representatives with innovative approaches based on a recognized blended learning method and state-of-the-art technological solutions. It will also support SIDS’ digital development and economic growth through targeting digital identity, e-commerce and statistics' gathering and will push SIDS towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons
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The Blue Economy provides a critical means for SIDS to accelerate development in the integrated pillars of the UNDP SIDS Offer "Rising Up For SIDS", including Climate Action and Digital Transformation. The year 2022 was declared by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture in recognition of the significant role of small-scale fishers, fish farmers and fish workers in providing healthy and nutritious food to billions of people. The need to sustainably use ocean resources for economic growth has been asserted in SDG target 14.7. UNDP’s Ocean Promise, that was launched in June 2022 at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, has committed to deliver at least 100 Ocean Innovations by 2030, by incubating innovative solutions that are transformational, scalable and replicable.
In this regard, UNDP launched its second cohort of 10 ocean innovators last week to tap into new technologies and approaches to end overfishing, and put an end to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices. Among the winning projects, 3 were targeting SIDS. The “Space-Based Maritime Surveillance System for Fisheries Monitoring and Anomaly Detection” project will provide a ground-breaking, nearly real-time and automated space-based maritime surveillance solution for illegal fishing, building ocean resilience by addressing the risk of overfishing, particularly for some tuna species, in the Western Indian Ocean.
Since women fisherfolk in the Maldives often struggle with delayed and unfair payment conditions, and poor access to financial information, tools and training, the “Increasing Economic Benefits for Women Fisherfolk in the Maldives” project will give women fisherfolk direct marketing and branding control over their fish products and augment their commercial value. Finally, the “Innovative fisheries management and aquaculture practices for Caribbean spiny lobster" project aims to develop a novel genetic tool based on population structure data for Caribbean spiny lobster and its connectivity across the region, working directly with fishers to transfer the latest global grow-out aquaculture technology and management, and co-design small-scale grow-out operations for spiny lobster.
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Image Credit: Carla Schaffer / AAAS
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Islands are a focal point in the global biodiversity crisis, with 40 percent of globally threatened vertebrates and 61 percent of global extinctions since the 1500s. The high rates of endemism, endangerment and extinction on islands makes them a priority target for conserving biodiversity. Invasive alien species, especially invasive terrestrial mammals, are the primary driver of native biodiversity loss on islands, including billions of USD in island-based economic losses. These losses are directly linked to declines in human health and livelihoods, especially considering the central importance of marine and coastal ecosystem services in SIDS. However, eradication of invasive species from islands has been proven to be an effective method for halting or reversing these trends.
One of the essential tools for addressing the challenges of invasive species is the development of a global compendium of invasive species eradication efforts, essential for scaling best-practices and innovations. This standardized framework to systematically document the methods and outcomes of eradications that have been implemented worldwide. The Database of Island Invasive Species Eradications has been released as a new digital repository for advancing this effort through 100 years of invasive vertebrate eradications from islands, including 1550 eradication attempts on 998 islands, with an 88 percent success rate. This data enables research that can facilitate complimentary restoration actions such as reforestation and conservation translocations. The results serve as a guide for data-driven conservation decisions, including policy and funding that support invasive species eradications in SIDS.
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Resilient Transport in Small Island Developing States - From a "Call to Action" to Actions
The objective of this report, Resilient Transport in Small Island Developing States—From “A Call for Action” to Actions, is to help practitioners integrate climate resilience considerations into transport asset management and thus enhance climate resilience in the transport sector of SIDS (Phases 2 and 3 of the technical assistance). The report starts by introducing the topic of natural hazards and climate change in SIDS and how they affect the transport sector. The report describes how governments can develop resilient transport asset management systems (TAMS) and then summarizes the activities implemented in four SIDS—Cape Verde in Africa, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, and Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in the Pacific—and shares lessons learned to improve the approach and framework.
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Toolkit to Enhance Access to Climate Finance for SIDS: A Commonwealth Practical Guide
Small Island Developing States continue to grapple with challenges in effectively accessing climate finance to support resilience efforts in meeting their targets for nationally determined contributions (NDCs), implementing national adaptation plans (NAPs) and addressing loss and damage due to climate change. Whilst the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) saw progress made towards delivering the USD 100 billion climate finance goal by 2023 at latest, and countries agreed on a way forward for the new post-2025 climate finance goal, this remains inadequate as annual adaptation costs in developing economies are estimated to reach between USD 155 to USD 330 billion by 2030. The ‘Toolkit to Enhance Access to Climate Finance: A Practical Guide’ was launched to support small Commonwealth states and other vulnerable member countries to access much-needed finance to mitigate and adapt to the devastating impacts of climate change.
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UNDP SIDS Data Platform
The SIDS Data Platform has been developed to provide policymakers, research institutions, UNDP country offices, and other development agents with freely available access to updated, standardized, and comprehensive data. The database of country-level indicators is compiled from 22 databases and research studies and presented alongside analytic tools, country profiles, and through a customizable Multidimensional Vulnerability Index. The GIS portal features over 80 research studies and databases, with visualization and analytic tools to allow development agents to been able to discover, access, and export this data. Custom machine learning models have been developed to impute the indicator datasets to provide an interactive interface for testing modeling approaches for filling in gaps in the database.
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World Ocean Tech and Innovation Summit
Economist Impact’s World Ocean Tech and Innovation Summit, hosted by Canada’s Ocean Supercluster in collaboration with the Province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Partnership, will convene innovators, business leaders, thought leaders and investors to learn about and engage with the latest “blue economy” innovators and technologies, and identify solutions that will form the roadmap to a sustainable, thriving ocean economy.
Taking place in Halifax, Canada, the two-day programme will showcase local innovations that have the potential to be scaled globally, and welcome international business leaders, investors and scientists to share learnings and unleash new opportunities for cross-border partnership and investment.
Register here: https://bit.ly/3e9Pcz7
When: 4 - 5 October 2022
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The Ultimate Fintech Experience
Fintech Islands will be a global event that brings together the disruptive, influential and innovative technology companies and leaders that are redefining financial services across the globe and we would love to have you join us for the event. The goal of the event is to discuss global trends in fintech, showcase new applications of technology for the financial services industry, and captivate an audience with the power to build what’s next. Fintech Islands also aims to facilitate networking and collaboration among financial institutions, technology providers, startup investors and other key players in the financial services sector.
Register here: https://www.fintechislands.com/registration
When: 5-7 October 2022
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Integrated Spatial Planning
The United Nations Development Programme and PacMARA are pleased to offer a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Integrated Spatial Planning. With generous support from the GEF and Sida, this five-week course draws on the Essential Life Support Areas (ELSA) methodology, pioneered by UNDP and partners for using spatial data to identify areas where nature-based actions can support in halting biodiversity loss, addressing climate change, and fostering sustainable development based on the experiences of 12 pilot countries. This course will explain how this integrated spatial planning methodology is helping countries create their own ‘Maps of Hope’ to chart a course for action on nature, climate, and sustainable development.
Register here: https://www.learningfornature.org/en/courses/integrated-spatial-planning/
When: 17 October - 18 November 2022
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