Roseau, Dominica: March 21, 2022: Dominican, K. Lisana Dyer has been selected by the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) for the 2022 AOSIS Fellowship Programme.
Ms Dyer, who was engaged as an intern under the National Employment Programme (NEP) as an Environmental Officer for Climate Change Coordination in the Ministry of Environment, Rural Modernisation and Kalinago Upliftment, is the first Dominican selected to pursue the prestigious programme.
Ten (10) representatives were selected from the 39 nations signed to the AOSIS, and four (4) were chosen from the Caribbean. Ms Dyer will spend a year with Dominica’s delegation at the United Nations Headquarters in New York learning the ropes of environmental diplomacy. The AOSIS Fellowship programme, designed to benefit Small Island Developing States (SIDS), brings early career professionals from AOSIS member countries to New York to participate as Fellows, with the unique opportunity to gain real-world UN experience, while participating in a world-class training programme.
The programme provides an avenue for Fellows to engage with international negotiations as they prepare for and attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Bonn and the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Fellows are also prepped to engage fully in negotiations on behalf of their country at the high-level segment of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Established in 1990, the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) is an intergovernmental negotiating body, which acts as a collective voice for the interests and concerns of island states at the United Nations level. AOSIS seeks to influence international environmental policy, specifically in the area of climate change, to reduce global carbon emissions in small island states, which are coping with the impacts of environmental changes. It aims to educate and train career small island diplomats and policy experts, and, through them, increase the capacity of governments to engage in domestic, regional or multilateral environmental processes.
Fellows leave the programme well-versed in climate change, environmental protection, and sustainable development issues and equipped with the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to represent their countries at the UN and in other multilateral fora. K. Lisana Dyer holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geography, and Environmental and Natural Resource Management from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus; and a Master of Science Degree in Natural Resource and Environmental Management with a specialization in Climate Change from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.