Linking the Arctic and SIDS
The Arctic and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are directly threatened by climate change and vulnerable to its effects. Both regions face considerable challenges in confronting climate change impacts on their economies, ecologies, and cultures. While communities in both regions have proven able to adapt to changing conditions in the past, climate change today and in the future will pose new and unprecedented challenges to the regions’ adaptive capacity and resilience.
Although natural and human environments within and between the two regions differ markedly, the Arctic and SIDS share many characteristics which impose particular constraints to, and offer unique opportunities for, sustainable development and adaptation to global climate change. There is a need for cooperation between the regions to deal effectively with common challenges. The Many Strong Voices (MSV) Programme brings the two regions together to take collaborative and strategic actions on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“An effective response to climate change will depend on creating the conditions for international collective action.”
MSV Phase I
In 2004, representatives of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, SIDS and UNEP/GRID-Arendal began discussing the need for a joint effort to raise awareness about the effects of climate change in two of the the world’s most vulnerable regions. The MSV programme was launched at a roundtable organized by UNEP/GRID-Arendal at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC/COP 11) meeting in Montréal in December 2005.
Key achievements of the first phase of the programme:
- The programme's vision, goals and objectives and strategy have been established and continue to be developed;
- The programme has gained numerous partners from both the Arctic and SIDS representing nearly 20 nations;
- An MSV Steering Group has been established;
- The Five-Year MSV Action Plan has been developed collaboratively with MSV participants at the first MSV Stakeholders Workshop in May 2007;
- An assessment scoping study of coastal impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change was designed in support of the development of a SIDS Dynamic Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation; and
- Numerous communications, outreach and education deliverables were achieved.
The result of this work is that the Many Strong Voices Programme has become increasingly well known and is becoming widely recognized as a key initiative in the effort to support people in two of the most vulnerable regions.
"...let me highlight the project Many Strong Voices, which has enabled mutual exchange of competence and knowledge between SIDS communities and communities in the Arctic, thus paving the way for building and developing coastal communities' capacity for dealing with climate change."
- Ellen Svendsen, High Executive Officer, Section of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
MSV Phase II
The second phase of MSV is focused on the implementation of the
Five-Year Action Plan, and involves a number of key activities in the shorter-term, including:
- Launching the SIDS Dynamic Assessment of Vulnerability and Adaptation
- Holding a second stakeholders workshop that will feature capacity building seminars and an outreach strategy for the UNFCCC negotiation process
- Exchanging information and experiences on adaptation, featuring regional experiences and learning at the Climate and Development Days at the United Nations Climate Change Conference / UNFCCC COP 14 in Poznañ, Poland in December 2008;
- Collaborating with organisers of the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change in Alaska in 2009;
- Communications, outreach and education activities will include participating in events at key international meetings, the improvement of the web site, development of a digital library and creation of an electronic newsletter. Tours and speeches will also be organized for key MSV spokespeople; and
- Network development, including the launch of an Arctic SIDS Youth Network and expansion of the support base for the programme.