Implementation challenges of science diplomacy in ‘Climate Smart Philippines’

SCIENCE diplomacy plays a vital role in the implementation of “Climate Smart Philippines,” the flagship program of the Environmental and Climate Change Research Institute. It is a platform that provides elucidations in reducing disaster risks and preventing potential damage and losses through scientific wide-ranging assessment, capacity development, project management, and multilateral cooperation among stakeholders. It is an avenue for all the actors to understand, plan, develop and implement not only the best science and evidence-based strategic solutions but also the most humane and gender-responsive schemes in the most diplomatic way. It is also a stratagem designed to bring out the best in every individual to solve the most pressing conundrum regardless of culture, gender, and nationality. And it is also a bridge that influences and impacts public policy, which deals with matters of fretfulness, peevishness and sensitivity.

But despite the solutions that this program has provided for more than a decade, recurring issues and threats still occur to some areas in the country. Here are some of them: