The Institute for Sustainable Development

The mandate of the ISD is to promote, foster, reinforce, and facilitate efforts at achieving sustainable development in the Caribbean region for the benefit of present and future generations.  The ISD is positioned to play a leadership role in capacity building, and in improving the coordination of environmental and development activities in the region.

 Franklin McDonald, Coordinator, ISD

It is engaged in efforts to network with key multilateral stakeholders including CARICOM, the Association of Caribbean States, the United Nations system and a wide range of regional and sub regional organizations. It attempts to service and facilitate governments, academia, NGO’s, civil society, professional organisations as well as the private sector.  The work of the ISD focuses on research in select subjects, engaging in dialogue with its stakeholders (including policymakers and key decision makers) with a view to fostering the incorporation of sustainability and resilience concepts and considerations into national, sub-national and sectoral strategies, plans, policies and programmes. The ISD also engages in conceptualising, executing and participating in externally-funded projects. It disseminates the results of its work by publication in print and the Internet as well as by face to face and group communication and innovative use of media.

The Institute aims to evolve into a regional “portal” on Sustainability and Resilience and seeks to add value to the wide range of relevant UWI knowledge, capacity and human resources. The Institute’s orientation is toward the community outside the walls of academia with the development needs of the CARICOM community as a first priority. The development of the capacity of Caribbean people and institutions to manage the environment is a high priority. Its work is multidisciplinary and collaborative in nature and requires the input, collaboration and cooperation of experts drawn from several disciplines in UWI as well as collaborators and partners from similar institutions.

The Future

The ISD will continue to establish its systems, programmes and projects in response to its mandate over the next biennium. Llinkages with UWI based entities on all the campuses with particular emphasis on the links with the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES) at the Cave Hill campus and the Sustainable Economic Development Unit (SEDU) at the St. Augustine campus will be strengthened. The ISD vision of evolving into the UWI 'portal' or focal point for a wide range of sustainability and resilience issues requires the development of an open, transparent, flexible framework of knowledge networks.

With the emergence of new issues, trends and demands the ISD will continue to support appropriate initiatives related to emerging regional challenges such as:

-     The environmental management initiatives related to university-wide “greening.”

-     Environmental and energy security.

-      Natural resource valuation.

-      Policy coherence, risk, foresighting capacity.

-     Climate change - coping and adaptation.