RCE Salisbury - 2021

Coming Together for Sustainability: Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030 for the RCE Global Webinar #2
Basic Information
Title of project : 
Coming Together for Sustainability: Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030 for the RCE Global Webinar #2
Submitting RCE: 
RCE Salisbury
Contributing organization(s) : 
Bosserman Center for Conflict Resolution
Focal point(s) and affiliation(s)
Name: 
Dr. Brittany Lee Foutz
Organizational Affiliation: 
RCE Salisbury, Salisbury University, Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Bosserman Center for Conflict Resolution
Name: 
Dr. Brian Polkinghorn
Organizational Affiliation: 
RCE Salisbury, Salisbury University, Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution
Format of project: 
Virtual
Language of project: 
English
Date of submission:
Friday, June 18, 2021
Geographical & Education Information
Region: 
Americas
Country: 
United States
Address of focal point institution for project: 
Host of the RCE location:



Bosserman Center for Conflict Resolution



1100 Camden Ave, Salisbury, MD 21801 USA
Target Audience:
Socioeconomic and environmental characteristics of the area : 
The Eastern Shore began the twenty-first century with strong growth across multiple economic indicators. The region gained jobs at double the rate of the rest of the state from 2001 to 2007 while also outpacing the state in net business creation and keeping pace in wage growth. However, there are more people experiencing poverty now than there were 30 years ago. Maryland’s poverty rate is 19 percent higher than it was in 1990 – a year that the U.S. economy entered a recession – and there are nearly 200,000 more Marylanders trying to get by on incomes below the federal poverty line. Nearly every county in the state has a higher poverty rate than it had in 1990. While unemployment rates have continued to decline since the 2008 recession, wages often are not high enough to support a family. However, Maryland has a history of supporting effective programs that help lift people out of poverty. Working together, the state can do even better. Maryland is working strongly to support efforts to address the state’s many unmet needs and invest in the success of all Marylanders.



The State of Maryland has an estimated population of 6,052,177 people based on the most recent US census calculations. When broken down into regional populations, the Eastern Shore of Maryland region includes the following nine counties: Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Wicomico, Worcester, and Somerset. The sparsely populated counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland have a combined population of 454,889 or 13% of the state population.
Description of sustainable development challenge(s) in the area the project addresses: 
The core area in the region constitutes the “shore counties” or those that reside either within or on the Chesapeake Bay (watershed) and along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. This includes all of the counties in Delaware, Maryland, and nineteen of the forty counties in Virginia. These physical locations are being subjected to the quickest increases in climate change activities and the poorest residents in these locales will experience severe detrimental impact on their quality of life.



SDG 4 - Quality Education



Secondly, the citizens of the Delmarva Peninsula, by and large, have lower levels of educational attainment and lower incomes. RCE Salisbury will focus in part on communities in these areas that experience the highest high school dropout rates where the social reproduction of poverty is endemic.



SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions



The most vulnerable members of this region are in the crosshairs of climate change and educational disadvantage. Both will lead to increased social conflict and with limited resources and limited planning the consequences are dire. These dynamics will impact the foundational resources that people and the institutions built on these resources - depending on for survival, security, and prosperity.
Contents
Status: 
Completed
Period: 
January, 2001
Rationale: 
We have found our region in a world very different from the one envisioned when the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were formulated almost six years ago. Not only have negative trends in growth, investment, employment, inequality, and environmental sustainability increased, but the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) has had catastrophic effects on our societies. Unemployment, poverty and extreme poverty (with the consequent risk of hunger), and inequality have increased, while the emission reductions of the first months of the pandemic tend to be lost as growth recovers unchanged to the development model.

As long as uncertainty remains about the intensity and duration of the pandemic, economies and societies will continue with intermittent shutdowns and shutdowns. Vaccination advances are at an insufficient pace and reflect great inequalities between countries according to their level of economic and social development and, above all, their financial and negotiating capacity to access vaccines. Once again, the need to advance regional integration is on the table.

The difficulty of the situation in 2020 and 2021 should not hide the fact that a large part of the determinants that exacerbate the effects of the pandemic was already present in the global and regional context, as well as in national realities. For this reason, the response to the health crisis must be accompanied by determined actions to correct unsustainable courses of action such as those followed to date.

These issues are at the center of the reflections of this report, in which we analyze the major trends underway in economies and societies worldwide, study in detail the health effects of the pandemic and highlight its economic and social repercussions. and environmental in our region. On that basis, we propose a strategy for action: a big push for sustainability based on the core elements of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs.

The strategy for a decade of action must be realistic, and build on progress and recognize the problems in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, to which we dedicate a chapter of the document. We note with concern that the trends that indicated that the comprehensiveness of the Agenda was at risk, as highlighted in previous versions of this report, have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and almost two-thirds of the goals we highlight will be unattainable if we do not change substantially the development model. Faced with this reality, the countries of the region have increased their efforts aimed at strengthening the institutional framework for the implementation of the Agenda, as shown by the increasingly numerous voluntary national examinations (VNS). At the same time, the United Nations development system has undergone a profound reform process that enhances the work between agencies, funds, and programs to respond more effectively and flexibly to the demands of countries.

To carry out the difficult pending tasks, in which governments, civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders must participate, we reiterate that action must be “accelerated to address systemic deficiencies in implementation, given that We are entering a decisive decade for the 2030 Agenda ”, as established in the political declaration of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held under the auspices of the General Assembly in 2019.

The objective of prioritizing the poorest and most vulnerable so as not to leave anyone behind can only be realized through international solidarity in the distribution of vaccines to contain the pandemic, progress in regional integration, and mobilization of resources to finance the SDGs. , the best implementation at the national and local level of the 2030 Agenda, the strengthening of institutions, the resolution of problems through international cooperation, and the use of science and technology. Moreover, only in this way will we prevent our region from going back on the paths that have led it to suffer from the devastating effects of the pandemic, which have lasted for a year now and which hinder progress towards rapid recovery and sustainable development with equality at the center.

The ESD for 2030 roadmap outlines actions in five priority action areas on policy, learning environments, building capacities of educators, youth, and local level action, stressing further ESD’s key role for the successful achievement of the 17 SDGs and the great individual and societal transformation required to address the urgent sustainability challenges. We focused on Priority Action Area 5: Accelerating local-level actions.
Objectives: 
To give attendees an understanding of local sustainable practices and the UN SDGs.

To inform the community about sustainability initiatives in Salisbury, Maryland, along with the City.

To demonstrate correct implementation of sustainable practices.

To identify trends and correlations between efforts within the City and the Campus.

To provide examples of initiatives that display the full spectrum of sustainability efforts.

To encourage sharing of best practices through local collaboration between students, staff, and faculty of SU, community members, and elected officials.

Identify gaps or sectors of sustainability that SU is currently lacking in.
Activities and/or practices employed: 
An analytic induction methodology was used for this study. The formal objective of this methodology is a causal explanation, a specification of the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the emergence of some part of social life. Analytic induction begins by studying a small number of cases of the phenomenon to be explained, searching for similarities that could point to common factors. Once a hypothetical explanation has been developed further cases are examined. Therefore, this was the best methodology to get a representation of the region.
Size of academic audience: 
50+
Results: 
This section will discuss the findings of the project. To begin with what makes this region unique is also its challenge. There is open land for farming and chicken farms with their runoff into the Bay which threatens the watermen, and climate change, which threatens the tourist industry and population on the islands and coastal areas. There are migrant workers whose children begin the school year and are often gone by Christmas. The region features diversity but a lack of education and poverty towards those less fortunate. There is proximity to large cities, where young people tend to flock but, also, an aging population. Furthermore, the resulting stress on local institutions all serve up many issues that are needed to be addressed.
Lessons learned: 
What we have learned through our research is that region is focused on the idea of improving environmental sustainability. This focus leads to a multitude of programs and initiatives that the school enacts which are in line with keeping the school, as a whole, and being environmentally conscious. With so many events and opportunities for students and faculty to volunteer their time to the Salisbury community, it is clear to see the importance and value of improving environmental sustainability in the University.

Pictures:

File Name Caption for picture Photo Credit
Image icon Coming Together for Sustainability.png (359.86 KB) Coming Together for Sustainability: Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
(https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs) and other themes of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
SDG 17 - Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development 
Direct
Theme
Ecotourism 
Direct
Forests/Trees 
Direct
Plants & Animals 
Direct
Waste 
Direct
ESD for 2030-Priority Action Areas
Priority Action Area 1 - Advancing policy 
state: 
Indirect
Priority Action Area 4 - Mobilizing youth 
state: 
Direct
Priority Action Area 5 - Accelerating sustainable solutions at local level 
state: 
Direct
Update: 
No