Island Innovation Ambassadors take part of Sustainable Development in Islands Training Session

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Past and present ambassadors provided some insights about environmental and sustainability challenges last March 9, 5pm in New York, 10pm London 9am Sydney or March 10, 6am Philippine Standard time.

Stacey Alvarez de la Campa of Barbados facilitated the exchange between current and seasoned Island Innovation Ambassadors about Sustainable issues in the islands last week. Among the previous cohort of ambassadors, Zaidy Afrin from Fiji shared her ongoing advocacies about Sustainability Development Goals and circular economy. Chirag from India also echoed the concerns from a slight different perspective.

De La Campa started off with the concept of Sustainable Development which “calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet.” Moreover, for sustainable development to be achieved, according to the Island Innovation Ambassador Coordinator, “it is crucial to harmonize three core elements: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection.”

Based on Zaidy’s slides, there is a need to shift paradigms like tides of the islands: from reduction to emergence, from line to non-linear, separate to connected and from static to dynamic. She also asked newbie ambassadors about how local actions help achieve Sustainable Development goals through some templates.

One of the highlights of the training session is the “Systems Innovation Toolkit for Circular Economy.” This toolkit utilizes guides and canvasses. The guides explain the key concepts in an accessible fashion while canvasses support user in applying these ideas. What is paramount importance to islands is from simple innovative ideas can have the most impactful applications.

The ambassadors recently attended an info-session about Islands of Innovation online course from the European Union. The said course entails comparison of status quo and desired futures. Likewise it is intended to create a new or revised policy program and build innovation teams for areas, municipalities and even regions.