Location: South Pacific

Contact: Heinz Schandl

Research Question:  How can policy provide enabling conditions for a sustainability transition in the Pacific Islands region that are based on sound scientific analysis and assessment of conditions and trajectories in major sustainability domains?

What did (or will) the project do?

This project will provide a rapid strategic sustainability assessment (SSA) of the Pacific Islands region with a view to comprehensively accounting for their natural resource, social and economic circumstances (the “triple-bottom line”). The approach used will be a modified form of Strategic Environmental Assessment (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler 2005) which includes some of the aspects of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The assessment will provide a series of principles about: (i) natural resource conditions and trajectories, (ii) economic conditions and trends, and (iii) emergent social issues.

The principles can be used to inform policymakers and improve planning and governance throughout a region in which there is a paucity of quality information.
 

A future proposal will be developed (Phase 2) to build on the rapid SSA to produce a comprehensive SSA of the region which will: (i) comprehensively assemble all available information on the social, economic and natural resource conditions of the countries and the region as a whole, (ii) identify the key pressures on social, economic and natural resource sustainability, and (iii) assist in the identification of priorities for developmental assistance and improved planning and governance throughout the region.
 

This comprehensive SSA will provide a platform of knowledge from which key problems can be diagnosed and from which further research and analytic tasks can be discerned. The SSA will employ a modified Strategic Environmental Assessment methodology (Verheem and Tonk 2000); the key components of this will be: (i) issue scoping, (ii) description of natural resource, social and economic conditions (baseline), (iii) evaluation of significant and trend determination, (iv) review of draft baseline and evaluation by a panel of independent experts and national representatives, and (v) final assessment.
 

What will the project produce?

Phase 1 of the project will involve desk-top research and will produce a report that consists of the sustainability assessment framework and a number of chapters around governance, social, economic and environmental (resource) conditions in all Pacific Island states. The report will summarise major conditions and trajectories and will cluster countries. It will discuss strategies and enabling policies for a sustainability transition in the region.

How can the project make a difference to development?

Well informed policies based on a comprehensive sustainability assessment might enable a transition of current Pacific Island economies towards sustainability. The project success will depend on a science-policy dialogue to underpin the research in project phase 2 in order to tailor the sustainability assessment for the needs of local policy makers.

Project completion date - 30 June 2009

VIEW project presentation [size 279KB]
February 2009