This Is Guernsey

By Joel de Woolfson

Picture by Peter Frankland, 0580611

GUERNSEY is better placed to learn from other islands after a new benchmarking service was launched yesterday.

Island Analysis has been developing a best-practice benchmarking service covering islands around the world. The company has produced a report that highlights key issues that apply in most islands.

It hopes that by comparing the experiences of different islands when dealing with common problems such as waste disposal, air and sea transport, ageing population plus young-people exodus, and energy generation, governments and businesses will be able to decide the best way to deal with these issues in their island.

‘Islands, wherever they are located in the world and whatever their size, face many common problems and, increasingly, have to take account of external factors,’ said Chris Brock (pictured), director of Island Analysis. ‘Consequently, there are significant benefits to be derived if island communities worldwide work as closely together as possible in order to share knowledge and experience.’

Speaking at the launch at the service, the former St Peter Port North deputy said he had visited 28 islands in the world to see what their primary concerns were.

He had formed 30 key issues and, of those, 25 common problems were identified in all the islands.

‘Through extensive research, many issues have been highlighted that are fundamentally important to islands,’ he said.

‘However, in addressing these issues, it should be stressed that islands always need to minimise potential risk and avoid unnecessary costs by pursuing wrong strategies.

‘In creating a strong and effective benchmarking service focused specifically on island communities, best practice will inevitably be identified in the delivery of a wide range of public and private sector activities within these communities.’

Mr Brock said these areas of best practice could then be assessed to see whether they are appropriate in other island contexts.

‘I have had a lot of experience in trying to compare how Guernsey was performing against other islands,’ he said.

‘It was easy to compare Guernsey against France or England, but it was very difficult to compare Guernsey with other islands.’

The report is split into two areas: external factors affecting islands and internal ones.

Mr Brock said the company was gathering information on key areas such as population and migration, the economy, environment, social issues and government.

So far 13 islands have been covered, including Guernsey, Jersey, Bermuda, Malta, the Maldives, Tasmania, Fiji and Prince Edward Island.

The company hopes that number will increase to 30 by 2009 and eventually rise to 80.

‘The most important thing is that islands do want to learn from each other and that is why we have embarked on this,’ Mr Brock added.

Article posted on 17th May, 2008 - 9.30am