Green Development Capacity Building: Key Potential Educational Opportunities in Grenada

The capacity of national and local governments in the Caribbean to prepare for and adapt to climate change has been advanced recently by international financing strategies. For instance, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), developed as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, is financing projects that are led by local policy makers, practitioners, stakeholders, with regional and international expert support, to co-produce various programs related to climate change adaptation. This presentation will illustrate our work with the GCF on the Eastern Caribbean Island nation of Grenada. Traditionally seen as lying south of the major hurricane tracks, Grenada has been devastated twice in the past 15 years by hurricanes and is projected to face a range of advancing climate related risks including sea level rise, increased rainfall variability, and summer heat. In this research, we focus on green development and capacity building for the Climate Smart Cities: Grenada project to help the country prepare a GCF readiness support proposal. The objective of our project is to identify key education opportunities and challenges for the country of Grenada. This includes collaborating with key government and education stakeholders to create a preliminary capacity building plan that engages across the individual, household, community and sectoral levels within critical educational settings (K-12, vocational technical training, continuing education and professional development) to advance the use of scientific information in education and development activities. We will present on the opportunities and challenges to this type of co-generative process. Findings from our paper will demonstrate the co-production of active/field-based learning programs, indicators and monitoring program for green development capacity building, and professional development programs to advance local government management of green development initiatives, especially relevant for small island developing states (SIDS).