Executive Summary
There is mounting evidence that efforts to address climate change and to improve public health in the Caribbean can be complementary and mutually beneficial. However, the status and potential for integration of climate policy and health policy in the region is not clearly articulated.
This project sought to unravel the complexities of the current climate and health policy landscape in the Caribbean region. It identifies the barriers and facilitators influencing climate and health policy integration and describes potential opportunities and strategies for achieving a synchronized and harmonized policy ideal.
The work was executed by a muti-disciplinary team of experts from The University of the West Indies (The UWI). It was funded by the Wellcome Trust and coordinated by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication as part of an international collaboration of researchers from Brazil, Germany, India, Kenya, the U.K., and the U.S.
We interviewed 39 stakeholders who were purposively sampled to facilitate the gathering of a holistic perspective across governmental, non-governmental, academic, think tank, and advocacy organizations. Participants worked on climate change, health, the climate-health nexus, and or related areas. They were primarily based in seven[1] countries that were representative of the geographic, socio-economic, and political diversity in anglophone independent Caribbean states; however, three participants had extensive work and lived experience across the entire Caribbean region.
The project found that there is a need to accelerate the integration of health and climate policies, given the climatic vulnerability of the region which exists alongside the dual burden of a non-communicable disease crisis, and emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. The realization of this ideal is arguably articulated as climate in all policies. Achieving this will necessitate creation of a facilitating environment which overcomes existing barriers, leverages opportunities and operationalizes culturally appropriate strategies for multi sectoral policy making. The core findings related to barriers, opportunities, and strategies influencing effective policy integration are summarized below.
Barriers to integrating climate and health policy
Limited resources, competing priorities, awareness and education, and components of the policy making process were identified as barriers to the integration of climate change and health policies. The siloed tradition of government ministries and the time taken for a policy to be made official were found to impede policy development. Siloes across relevant or related technical and policy spheres fragmented decision making, limited resource sharing, and lengthened policy approval and implementation processes (even in settings where political will is present). Further, competing priorities at policy and technical levels, lack of non-project-based financing streams, and limited or inconsistent access to technical experts were also identified as barriers to integrated policy development and implementation. In particular, participants deemed financial and technical resources as inadequate for implementing climate and health policies that were capable of addressing the vulnerabilities of Caribbean countries.
Opportunities to advance and integrate climate and health policy
Opportunities for advancing climate and health policies included: creating national health/ climate adaptation plans, establishing and stabilizing funding streams, and creating analytical frameworks for assessing climate risks and co-benefits for renewable energy.
In addition, the project identified opportunities for creating links across sectors and policies by adopting multisectoral, broad-based approaches to advocacy and education focused on increasing awareness of the links and intersections between climate and health and the need to be responsive and innovative. These advocacy, awareness, and education efforts should be tailored to multiple audiences (e.g., policy makers, technical experts, and the lay public) with messaging that highlights their capacity to benefit in various ways from climate and health policies.
Strategies to advance and integrate climate and health policy
Suggested strategies for advancing and integrating climate and health policy included enhancing communication, advocacy, education and awareness, as well as improving resources and the enforcement of existing policies. Fundamentally, the strategies for integrated policy development and implementation in the region will require engaging stakeholders at multiple social- ecological levels. Engagement should use decision making frameworks which move policy makers and technocrats from pre-contemplative phases of decision making to that of decisive action (where action includes sustainable policy implementation with established monitoring and evaluation mechanisms).
Implications
The Caribbean Region is in a good position to integrate health and climate change polices with regional health, climate change and meteorological agencies. There are benefits of linking both however, for the integration to be successful, definite areas of integration need to be identified and prioritized. The research units throughout the Caribbean present a unique opportunity for supporting governments, policy units should conduct more health and climate policy research to strengthen the linkage and integration of these policies. On the advocacy side, robust advocacy and civil society networks will agitate for more policies to address tenuous links between health and climate change policies. The research team hopes that the information in this report will inform the critical assessment of climate and health policy in the Caribbean region, as well as discussions on strategic joint policy creation and implementation.
[1] Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago
Authors
Georgiana Gordon-Strachan, Natalie Greaves, Madhuvanti Murphy, Sandeep Maharaj, Shelly McFarlane
Citation
Gordon-Strachan Georgiana, Greaves Natalie, Murphy Madhuvanti, Maharaj Sandeep, McFarlane Shelly. (2025) Advancing integration of climate and health policies in the Caribbean insights from national and regional policy stakeholders. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/YBC7X
Funding Sources
We thank Wellcome Trust for funding this research.