25 participants complete short course on coastal adaptation and management |18 October 2021

Participants in a group photograph with guests after they had been presented with their certificate

Twenty-five participants have completed a short course on ‘Coastal adaptation and management in the Seychelles: Building capacity across institutions’ sponsored by the World Bank, UniSey and the embassy of Japan.

The awardees come from various government departments, institutions and the private sector that have one thing in common – the sustainable management of our coastal environment, and mitigating both human and natural risks on our natural environment.

This short course was presented as 6 modules over a four-week period that included theoretical lectures, field excursions and practical exercises.

Modules included introduction to the Seychelles’ Coastal Management Plan, understanding coastal change and protection, using geospatial information systems to improve coastal management, designing sustainable coastal protection measures, designing sustainable protection measures, looking at climate smart flood risk management, and linking these to the Blue Economy and the sustainable management of our natural marine and coastal resources.

During a small certificate presentation ceremony on Friday, Keren Charles, a disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank Group, addressed the participants focusing on developing strategies and implementing projects aimed at enhancing countries’ resilience to natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.

Dr Nuette Gordon, the local course co-ordinator and senior lecturer in the department of Environmental Sciences at the UniSey, noted that this short course on coastal adaptation and management in Seychelles came about from work undertaken by the World Bank in 2020, following the launch in 2019 of the Seychelles’ Coastal Management Plan.

“It is often found that institutional and technical capacity is Seychelles needs co-ordinated effort to ensure that skills are developed towards Seychelles’ reaching its various Strategic Development Goals.

“To this end, the University of Seychelles was approached by the World Bank with support from the Japan-Bank Programme for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management in Developing Countries, to help develop and present a short course in coastal adaptation and management, specifically with a focus on technical staff in the various government departments, civil society and private sectors,” explained Dr Gordon.

Speaking about the interest in the short course, Dr Gordon remarked that “there were 30 participants joining us each day and who participated in group discussions both in the lecture room as well as during the field excursions and practical exercises. As the course progressed it was very rewarding to see how participants started interacting and networking across their sectors (and outside their comfort zones) and the inquisitive questions that were being raised. As the course included aspects of management, GIS, modelling, ecology and even blue financing, the aims of this programme have come into their own and we are confident that all participants will use some of the tools shared with them during this course. We are also confident that networks established over the last four weeks will assist in the integrated management of our coastal habitat, with departments such as climate change, environment, disaster risk reduction, infrastructure development and land transport being well represented”.

Having received some more interest from the public, UniSey is planning a repeat of this course in the future.

Vidya Gappy