Since 2012, FORHEAD has been supporting the development of the Guangdong Platform on Earth Environment, Health and Development. Because environmental impacts on health vary regionally and by level and type of development, solutions must often be developed at the provincial, municipal or county level. It is also important to embed knowledge and practices in local institutions in order to achieve sustainability and greater responsiveness to specific needs for capacity building and problem-solving.
As a province that has been at the forefront of China’s industrialization and urbanization process, and which faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities, Guangdong is a perfect starting point for this work. The goals of the Guangdong Platform are:

1) to identify opportunities to make use of existing research to assist governmental and non-governmental actors in responding more effectively to environmental health risks;
2) to highlight areas in which further research is needed to improve understanding of environmental health risks and develop more effective responses;
3) to support collaborative, interdisciplinary projects, focusing on the challenges Guangdong faces, particularly in transitioning from intensive industry to higher value manufacturing and services.

A planning meeting was held in 2012, and an interdisciplinary conference drawing experts from universities, research institutes, government and civil society in Guangdong, will be held in September 2013. Outputs will include a conference report synthesizing key findings and discussions, policy recommendations, and an agenda for future collaborative and interdisciplinary policy-focused research.

 

Collaborative projects

This stage of work of the Guangdong Platform will lay a foundation for collaborative policy-relevant research projects which can provide an evidence base for recommendations to relevant government agencies and civil society organizations to assist them in responding more effectively to environmental health risks. Projects will focus on issues with specific relevance for the region and/or which point to ways in which Guangdong's experience can inform practice elsewhere in China. Projects will be connected to (and partially funded by) the SSRC small grants program.

The Guangdong Platform is housed at the Research Center for Earth Environment and Resources of Sun Yat-sen University.

The Guangdong Platform on Earth Environment, Health and Development is supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.