Dr David C. Smith is the Coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) and Director of the Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) at The University of the West Indies. He is also the Caribbean Coordinator for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN). He is an ecologist with almost 30 years’ experience in academia, civil society, the private sector, and the United Nations, focusing on Sustainable Development, Biodiversity Conservation, Climate Change, and Disaster Risk Reduction.

Dr Smith has also served in both advisory and policy development roles on a number of local, regional and international organisations. Among these include his current appointment as a member of the Science Policy Advisory Committee (SPAC) of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and his appointment as one of the independent scientists who prepared the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2019.

Dr Smith has been instrumental in the development of proposals for several UWI projects in sustainable development research, distance teaching, knowledge management, disaster risk management and hazard mapping. Before joining The UWI, he was the United Nations Assistant Resident Representative (Programme) in the Jamaica Office of UNDP where he was responsible for the Environment and Disaster Management programmme in the Jamaica, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and the Cayman Islands. Other responsibilities included Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Point and Disaster Focal Point, Office of the Coordinator on Humanitarian Affairs/United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (OCHA/UNDAC) and Focal Point and Deputy Chair for the UN Technical team on emergencies for Jamaica.

He is a former Executive Director of the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) and has contributed to small business management and the design of environmental financing mechanisms in Jamaica, Uganda, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Smith is also the author of several publications and technical reports in his field.