The Decade of Ocean Science: Will the UN deliver on its pledge for new funding for SIDS?

UNESCO says the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will help accelerate progress towards SDG 14, the Sustainable Development Goal for the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean, seas and marine environment, and one which is particularity important for Seychelles.

It is to be recalled that in September 2015 the United Nations General Assembly set the global development agenda for the next 15 year by putting in place Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs. Many countries including Seychelles are progressing with implementing the SDGs.

One of the priorities of the Decade of Ocean Science is also supposed to be to "strengthen and diversify financial sources, particularly for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries".

I hope the UN can really mobilize and engage everyone else for real action and not for more workshops, plans, studies & reports. I am tired of so many meetings that are only talk -shops and endless foreign consultants who keep wanting to pick our brains.


On the subject of funding, I find it telling that a new report says that the environmentally-related SDGs including SDG 14 have the lowest funding allocations for SDG implementation at the UN. These SDGs collectively account for 7% or less of SDG expenditures by the UN.  

Since I work full time for an NGO  - Nature Seychelles -  I believe it is only fair that my interest is implementation through NGO modalities. The UN has a unique chance to mobilize NGOs like never before to implement action as part of the Decade. In my experience national NGOs are often called upon by UN agencies because they deliver change-making results but they usually only get crumbs from the donor table. Will the Decade of Ocean Science be different? Only time will tell. Unfortunately, time is not something we have much of with climate change pushing us to the brink.

Comments

Hello how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near Madrid. I am a person very interested in knowing things related to the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc., in summary, I am a person who enjoys traveling , learning and respecting the diversity of people from all over the world.

I love to travel and know all the aspects mentioned in person, but unfortunately, since this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, I came up with a way to travel with imagination to all corners of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of stamps since this activity allows me to know in an original way some aspects such as fauna, flora, characters, monuments, etc. of all countries. As unfortunately, every day it is more difficult to get stamps, some time ago I started another collection in which my goal would be to get at least one letter from each country and territory with postal autonomy in the world. This modest objective is feasible to achieve in most countries, but unfortunately it is impossible to achieve in other different territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty, they are territories with small population or because any reason, their postal system is not working properly.

For all this I would like to ask you a small favor:

Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Seychelles? I understand perfectly that you think your blog is not the right place to ask this, and even, it is very probably that you will ignore my letter, but I would like to draw your attention about the difficulty that I have in receiving a letter from that country, besides, I do not know anyone or where to write in Seychelles in order to increase my collection. A letter for me is like a small souvenir, it's as if I had visited that country with my imagination and at the same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way of promoting a country in the world. My postal address is as follows:

Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

I would also like to invite you to visit my blog: www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com there, if you wish you can take a look at my collection and in this way understand in a more graphic way why I make this request.

Finally, I would like to thank you for the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my sincere wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your loved ones.

Sincerely

Emilio Fernandez