South American countries exhibit wide differences in political stability, human development index, quality of physical infrastructure, adequacy of educational system and language. Starting from 1996, Prof. Inyang collaborated with Prof. Terezinha Cássia de Brito Galvão of Brazil to organize private sector – government interactions on sustainable development, particularly, in the areas of waste management, mining and energy. The first forum was held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in August 2000. During that same month, he presented a short course on waste landfill monitoring and design in Belo Horizonte, to registrants from the United States, Japan, Nigeria and several South American countries. In a return trip to the region on July 27, 2003, Prof. Inyang addressed Minas Gerais state officials and personnel of Brazil’s Universite Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) on “the path to global sustainable development”. This was followed by a lecture on sustainable energy policies and technologies organized by Companhia Energetica de Minas Gerais (CEMIG) and UFMG for energy industry professionals. In June 2003, the Council for International Exchange of Scholars selected Prof. Inyang as a member of its study team to Brazil, during which the team analyzed a variety of sustainable development issues in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and San Salvador. Since then, he has participated in Brazilian waste management forums at the University of Rio de Janeiro and embarked on regional tours to favelas, mining sites and waste storage sites to provide technical advice.
He provided policy support for the development of the United Nations Agenda 21 Metrics by the Government of Brazil for the state of Minas Gerais upon the invitation of Ms. Rita de Cassias of Brazil’s federal government. His contributions have expanded beyond Brazil to other countries in the region. As the President of the Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction (GADR), he orchestrated the involvement of experts and program officers from the Caribbean in disaster management events in the United States and Europe, the most recent of which was held in Davos, Switzerland. With Dr. Walter Amman, GADR Vice-President for Europe, he arranged sponsored representation of the Caribbean and South America at the Davos event. With Dr. Walter Hays, the retired Executive Director of GADR, and Dr. Badaoui Rouhban of UNESCO, he co-developed and distributed blueprints for change in CD-ROM format. The blueprints are technical and policy recommendations for disaster-prone regions like the Caribbean, to increase their disaster resistance. He has been recognized with several prizes for his technical and policy contributions in the United States.
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