Subscribe to UWI NewsroomDr. David Smith elected to SPAC and Jamaica to Executive Council of the IAI
Posted: September 07, 2020
Dr. David Smith, director of the Centre for Environmental Management and Coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) at The UWI, (on August 19, 2020), was elected a member of the Science Policy Advisory Committee (SPAC) for the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI). He was elected at the 28th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the IAI (CoP-28).
The IAI is a regional intergovernmental institution that promotes scientific research and capacity building related to global change issues throughout the Americas to inform decision-makers. The IAI currently has 19 parties (nations) in the Americas. As a member of the SPAC, Dr. Smith will provide advice to the CoP and the IAI Directorate on how to use and design science for policy and decision-making. His term will run from 2020-2023.
At the same meeting, Jamaica was elected as member to the Executive Council of the IAI. Jamaica joins Canada, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama (1st Vice-Chair), Paraguay, United States of America (Chair), and Uruguay (2nd Vice-Chair) as Council members from 2020-2022. The Executive Council develops policy recommendations for submission to and approval by the CoP and ensures that policies adopted by the CoP are implemented by the IAI Directorate.
In April 2020, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica designated The UWI, Mona and the National Commission on Science and Technology (NCST) as the National Focal Points to the IAI for Jamaica. In the same notification, two current UWI staff members (Prof. Michael Taylor, Dean FST and Dr. Tannecia Stephenson, Head of Physics, The UWI Mona) were appointed to serve alongside Dr. Judith Mendes, NCST (former Life Sciences lecturer, The UWI Mona, and PhD graduate in Marine Sciences) and Prof. Errol Morrison (NCST) as the designated representatives from Jamaica to the IAI.
For more about the IAI: www.iai.int/en/
For more about the ISD: https://www.uwi.edu/isd/
For more about the National Commission on Science and Technology (NCST): https://ncst.gov.jm/about/
