The Need for International Capacity-Building and Overcoming Challenges

President Obama stated “Science, technology and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost effectively when insights, costs and risks are shared; and so many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character”.   The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is providing the science to meet many of those global challenges.   This is particularly true for two of the planet’s emerging challenges, adapting to climate change and ensuring  food security.

NOAA works to understand and predict changes in earth’s environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources.    This includes weather, climate, marine life and the oceans.   Understanding and predicting changes requires observations against which to inform and test scientific theories.   Conserving and managing resources means both proper stewardship as well as protection from external threats.   In the global and regional ecosystems we share, knowledgeable, trained partners are essential for those ecosystems to survive and thrive.   Due to what we share, many of these partners will need to come from the developing world and is why capacity building is an important element of NOAA’s work.

Developed and developing nations are turning to science to provide the solutions upon which our survival may rest.  It will take the best minds from all nations to successfully address these challenges.       Adaptation to the impacts of climate change  on rainfall, food, health, etc .  will require not only local scientific leadership but local support as well.   Building scientific capacity in developing countries is thus a key component to success.   But it is more than working with scientific elites; it is also working to increase the average person’s understanding and appreciation for the fruits of science.   The bottom line is that we need and want people to do the right things for the environment for the right reasons.