Sustainable development in small island developing states : an overview of UNESCO's concerns and activities

Abstract

UNESCO's contribution to sustainable living and development in small islands touches on a wide range of topics and issues related to culture, natural and social sciences, environment and resource use, communication and education. Recent initiatives have sought to take advantage of modern information and communication technologies (e.g., community multimedia centres, Internet discussion forums) and to promote dimensions of sustainable development and sustainable living that were perhaps somewhat neglected in the 1994 Barbados Programme of Action including social cohesion, culture and education as well as cross-cutting emerging issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, youth and gender. At the same time, UNESCO has continued to contribute to environment and natural resource issues, such as freshwater resources, sea-level rise, coastal and marine resources, biodiversity conservation, renewable energy and natural hazards. Increasingly underpinning this work is the building of bridges and networks of various kinds, through promoting effective collaboration between institutions and organisations (intersectoral cooperation), between regions (interregional cooperation), and between generations (intergenerational cooperation). Though UNESCO's remit is not an economic one, progress in building bridges and networks across its fields of competence has important economic implications, including the strengthening of the economic resilience of small island states.