SANCOR ACTIVITIES: AN UPDATE

 

The activities of the SANCOR Steering Committee (SSC) are guided by a list of tasks that were identified to address the key elements of the SANCOR Strategic Plan developed in 1997.

 

A notable undertaking of the SSC in 1999 was the co-ordination of an external evaluation of the Sea and Coast Programme (1996-2000) which highlighted the overall success of the programme and the excellent contribution of the marine science community to resource management, policy formulation and capacity building. In addition, it identified areas where the programme failed to meet some of the goals, notably in the incorporation of socio-economic aspects. The background, goals and evaluation of the Sea and Coast Programme is in the process of being published as a SANCOR Occasional Report.

 

A major task completed by the SANCOR community over the past year has been the development of a proposed new research programme, i.e. the Sea and Coast II. Active contribution to this process was made via Regional Fora workshops followed by a national workshop in March 2000 to crystalize and collate the inputs from the 3 regions, and to incorporate lessons from the evaluation described above. This proposed new programme has been presented to both stakeholders, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEA&T) and National Research Foundation (NRF).