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CARIBBEAN DIALOGUE ON WATER AND CLIMATE ESTABLISHED

A Caribbean Dialogue on Water and Climate is being established to promote and coordinate policy discussion and action on water and climate among Caribbean countries. The forum will also provide a framework for the dissemination of information, exchange of experiences, collaboration, and communication to address climate change in water resource management.

The announcement was made jointly by the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI) and the Organization of American States (OAS) Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment.

The Caribbean Dialogue emerged from a decision earlier this year at a CEHI stakeholders meeting called to discuss coordination of the water resources management and climate components of three major Caribbean regional projects: Adaptation to Climate Change in the Caribbean funded by the Canadian International Development Agency; Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change to be funded by the Global Environment Facility through the World Bank; and Integrating Watershed and Coastal Area Management to be funded by the Global Environment Facility through the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environmental Programme.

Funded by the Netherlands-based International Secretariat for the Dialogue on Water and Climate, the Caribbean initiative is also designed to promote the exchange of information and experiences with small island states of the Pacific Region.

CEHI will run the project in coordination with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Climate Change Centre, which will provide policy guidance for all climate change related initiatives in the Caribbean. The Centre is expected to be in operation by the latter half of 2002. The OAS Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment is providing CEHI with technical support to manage the secretariat of the Dialogue.

Activities planned for the first year of the Dialogue include a public awareness campaign, a stakeholders' consultation, a regional workshop, a website, a presentation to the Third World Water Forum (Japan, March 2003), and a small island developing states issue paper on water and climate.

Among partners in the Caribbean Dialogue on Water and Climate are: CARICOM Climate Change Centre; Caribbean Conservation Association; Canadian International Development Agency; Caribbean Basin Water Management Programme; Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association; Commonwealth Science Council; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States Department of Commerce; Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Natural Resources Management Unit; South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission; and the World Bank.

For more information, contact:

Vincent Sweeney / Patricia Aquing
Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI)
The Morne
Castries, St. Lucia
Tel: (758) 452-1412
Fax: (758) 453-2721
E-mail: [email protected]

Sasha Beth Gottlieb
Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment
Organization of American States
1889 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 USA
Tel: (202) 458-3964
Fax: (202) 458-3560
E-mail: [email protected]

Reference: E-093/02