CLIMATE change and waste management are among the areas of focus of the cooperation programme to come out of the Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the Universities Consortium of Small Island States (UCSIS) and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) last week.

The document was signed Wednesday by Professor E Nigel Harris, the vice -chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), and Paolo Fontani, the officer with responsibility for the UNESCO in the Caribbean. Fontani signed on behalf of UNESCO’s director-general Koïchiro Matsurra.

Natural and environmental disasters, resources management, culture, and sustainable living and development are the other areas of focus of the cooperation programme, which is geared at capacity building for the implementation of the 1994 Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) for Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

It will also allow for the 2005 Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of SIDS.

The precise objectives include the promotion of an integrated system of research, training, information and documentation of activities for the implementation of the BPOA and Mauritius Strategy.

The parties to agreement will also cooperate with participating countries to develop and implement a graduate programme that will provide a more integrated set of course offerings in vulnerability reduction in SIDS and help to review and design training programmes for capacity-building.

In addition, they intend to develop visions, values and skills to motivate and equip participants to advocate for and implement sustainable development measures while developing research methods to identify, assess and monitor risks and vulnerabilities through an inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach.

Enabling consortium members – including the University of Malta, University of Mauritius, University of the South Pacific, the University of the West Indies and the University of the Virgin Islands – to convene a core committee of professors and administrators from the participating universities to further develop the substantive and procedural agenda, also forms part of their activities.