Meeting the challenges of the Pacific

ICLEI Oceania, as the regional secretariat of the Global Covenant of Mayors for the Oceania region, is supporting the current Global Covenant mission to the Pacific Islands. Steve Gawler, ICLEI Oceania Regional Director, has been part of the team visiting the Solomon Islands and Fiji to talk with national government representatives and several towns and cities selected to receive technical assistance funded by the European Union to prepare Climate Action Plans. At this stage four municipalities have been engaged - Honiara and Tulagi in the Solomons, Labasa and Savusavu in Fiji and a fifth town will be selected in the coming weeks.

The team visited each town to conduct an initial scan of their climate and development challenges. Cyclones, heavy rain events, landslides, flooding and inadequate drainage, solid and liquid waste management, sea level rise and coastal degradation were some of the identified threats.

Following this inception mission, a team of international specialists will visit the towns early in the new year to work with the local authorities to develop a climate action planning framework and commence designing and financing projects.