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Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands |
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Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands |
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Regional Workshop for the Asia-Pacific University Twinning Network ‘Exploring Wise Practice Agreements’
4.
Role of the Asia-Pacific UNITWIN Network
The principal objectives of the Asia-Pacific UNITWIN
Network are to:
Promote an integrated
system of research, training, demonstration, information and documentation
activities in the field of ‘Integrated Management and Sustainable
Development in Coastal Regions and in Small Islands’
Provide advice and
expertise to assist all partner countries in:
Establishing truly intersectional field projects
Facilitating links between local, regional and global levels,
promoting harmonization between top-down and bottom-up approaches, and
advocating complementarity among societal domains
Providing scientific-technological and socio-cultural support to
the field projects
Enhancing interdisciplinary research, education and training and
the use of new information and communication technologies
Strengthening local and indigenous knowledge systems and
facilitating, where applicable, their equitable articulation with
scientific-technological knowledge
Developing methods for evaluating and applying wise coastal
practices for sustainable human development
Recognizing higher-education qualifications
Developing guidelines and protocols towards the prevention of
potential, and resolution of existing, conflicts over coastal resources
and values.
For
more details refer to Annex 1.
The
workshop participants agreed that the principal domains of the UNITWIN network
are: scientific-technical, socio-cultural, education-communication. The main
disciplines concerned are: environmental sciences, social and human sciences,
cultural and natural heritage, management, law and economics.
Four
main questions were posed regarding the future activities of the UNITWIN
network:
How
does each university see their role in initiating a multi-stakeholder
agreement?
The University of the Philippines has taken on the role of coordinating the UNITWIN network, where it is housed within the Environmental Science Programme. A UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Coastal Development was established at the University of the Philippines in 2000 and will be the focal point for the network. The Chair holders are rotated among social and human science, law and environmental sciences. The University of the Philippines could play an important role in developing, coordinating and facilitating multi-stakeholder agreements in the CSI project at Ulugan Bay, and also assist the other countries involved in the network.
What is needed to ensure that each university takes up this role in 2003?
Activities involving multi-stakeholder agreements will have to be aligned with each university’s mandate. Already in many of the projects the role of a university as a non-biased third party has proved effective, e.g. University of Bhavnagar in ASSBY, the Chulalongkorn University in the Ko Surin case, and the University of Papua New Guinea in the Motu Koita situation.
How
could each university cooperate with the other UNITWIN universities and
projects to advance their multi-stakeholder agreement development?
The network needs to exchange data, information and experiences on the issues involved in each project, and then to identify the strengths and weaknesses of particular universities. Regional fellowships and exchanges, joint support for programs, and administrative linkages are examples of mechanisms which could provide for this cooperation. A proposal discussed at the workshop to conduct project assessments with the assistance of colleagues (including from universities) from related projects is one way this can be achieved. This also provides for external assessments and the exchange of ideas and approaches in a focused context.
What
other activities may be proposed to strengthen the UNITWIN cooperation?
