Д-р. Daniela Coswig Kalikoski
Dr. Kalikoski is a natural resources manager by background and works at the interface of natural and social sciences. She joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2012 as staff member. She is a Fishery Officer and Advisor of FAO's Strategic Programme on Poverty Reduction. She has devoted most of her professional life on rural development with a specific focus on collective action, community-based and co-management interventions. She has been involved in several national and international projects and initiatives that has focused on evaluating schemes to empower rural communities to fight poverty and hunger, challenges to fishing communities vulnerabilities to climate change; the challenges and lessons learned on implementing fisheries co-management arrangements; conflicts between small-scale fisheries and environmental conservation strategies; and the use traditional fishing practices and territoriality as an instrument to move towards responsible fisheries management.
Д-р. Daniela Coswig Kalikoski
Thank you to everyone who has participated to date for their thoughtful and insightful contributions. Some of the key points we have heard so far:
- The rich and varied local contexts of SIDS and the communities that form them, in terms of culture, history, economy, environment must be recognized and adequately understood in order to address the threats presented by climate change and disasters;
- While current understanding of poverty has advanced beyond economic aspects to include broader dimensions of wellbeing including food security, nutrition, safety and more, too often this is not adequately reflected in policy and program implementation and monitoring;
- For many SIDS, local agriculture is essential to local food security – policy should align with this to support these critical social objectives first and foremost.
- A variety of initiatives to improve local agriculture were described, including: capacity development and accessible technology to improve soil quality and retention, adaptive practices such as timing plantings to better line up with changes in hydrologic cycle, improved water conservation and storage, affordable irrigation, conserving and making use of local biodiversity, post-harvest processing and conservation practices to build on local knowledge and adapted to climate change realities;
- The national economies of many SIDS are service sector oriented – while this can be positive in motivating conservation interest, more attention is also needed towards developing opportunities for local livelihoods based on sustainable use of natural resources as part of addressing poverty and inequality, for example through further developing agro-forestry, agro-tourism, artisanal fisheries for local markets;
- Fisheries and use of other marine resources are activities in many SIDS that are in need of greater attention and support to develop and maintain sustainable local harvests for local markets;
- Urban planning in coastal cities should consider the interconnectedness of aquatic and terrestrial landscapes and work to support ecological integrity and conservation/enhancement of ecosystem services;
- Scenario development offers a useful opportunity to model what future socio-economic needs might be under different conditions;
- Structured review processes can be useful to assess and improve the alignment of policy and plans with climate adaptation and poverty reduction objectives, as well as to provide guidance on opportunities for adaptation financing (for example as in the case of Zanzibar’s MKUZA II);
- Participatory approaches and initiatives that work at multiple levels and cross-sectorally should be mainstreamed as key levers in building capacity and improving integrated approaches.
- Many small island countries are heavily reliant on food imports, which lead to a progressive abandonment of traditional foods and local varieties.
- A substantial percentage of the poor population relies on processed imported food, which is high in sugar and salts, further exacerbating the incidence of NCDs such as obesity.
We would still like to hear more details about your experiences with climate change adaptation and poverty reduction (considering climate-related poverty prevention and alleviation, and addressing inequality). Specifically how can the impacts of poverty reduction initiatives best be monitored?
Best,
Daniela