Dr. Ronald Roopnarine
Lecturer, Faculty of Food and Agriculture,
University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
Dr. Ronald Roopnarine is an early career researcher and academic with a thorough background in Disaster Risk Resilience and Sustainable Land and Water Resource Management. Presently, Dr. Roopnarine is Lecturer in the Faculty of Food and Agriculture, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus (FFA, UWI) responsible for teaching and development of courses related to Agri-environmental Disaster Risk and Climate Resilience. He is also the Network Manager of Caribbean WaterNet, (Caribbean arm of CapNet UNDP) and an international consultant for various UN agencies. Thus far he has amassed significant experience in Integrated Water Resources Management and Climate Change Adaptations, with specific focus on Caribbean Small Island Developing States.
In the last 4 years, he convened a series of regional capacity building activities aligned to Disaster Risk Management/ Climate Resilience. These activities were done in collaboration with numerous Regional Organizations, Government Ministries and NGOs. In 2019, Dr. Roopnarine, together with Global Water Partnership- Caribbean (GWP-C) and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) conducted a training geared towards building regional capacity pertaining to SDG 6 (Water and Sanitation). Dr. Roopnarine subsequently produced and published a Monitoring Guide for SDG 6 in Caribbean SIDS which was featured by numerous International Organizations, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development, GWP and UNDP. Dr. Roopnarine served as the Keynote Speaker in the Conseil d'architecture d'urbanisme et de l'environnement de la Guadeloupe for its seminar on Water and Sustainable Urbanization. He also spoke at the CARICOM Local Government Forum (CLGF) concerning a project he led in the use of existing land data as proxy indicators to inform small building codes. Based on his regional expertise and experience, he was recruited to numerous National and International Steering Committees focused on various aspects of Sustainable Development and Climate Change Resilience. In 2020, Dr. Roopnarine championed capacity building activities in Ground water and Hydro-Climatic Disaster Risk Management in Bahamas following the devastation of Hurricane Dorian. He also facilitated a virtual consultation for reporting on SDG 6.5.1, consequently resulting in Trinidad and Tobago being the first to conduct a virtual consultation and commence the 2020 global reporting process as part of the 2020 data drive coordinated by UN-Water. The unprecedented success of the process was highlighted by UN-Environment. He was also responsible for coordinating and developing two training manuals on Water Use Efficiency for Caribbean SIDS which were highly praised by various Regional and International agencies. He also served as the project lead in conducting a landslide and flood risk assessment for the Dominican Republic based on Climate Projections, which will inform their 2020 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), UNFCC reporting.
Commendably, Dr. Roopnarine has also continued to enhance his professional and academic proficiency. He has completed numerous professional development and training courses in the last couple years from reputed international agencies (World Bank, Humanitarian Leadership Academy, UNDP, Global Soil Partnership, UNFAO and IW LEARN). He is actively engaged in regional and international networking resulting in strategic financing mechanisms for a myriad of regional activities. Dr. Roopnarine’s progressive thinking, was the genesis for the development of a New Major in Disaster Risk Resilience in Agriculture and the Environment. The Major received outstanding reviews and is expected to be offered by the FFA, UWI from September 2021.