Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience Building

Pacific Adaptation 1 to ClimateChange and Resilience Building (PACRES) aims to ensure better regional and nationaladaptation and mitigation responses to climate change challenges facing Pacific ACP countries.It is being implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme(SPREP), the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, the Pacific Community and theUniversity of the South Pacific.PACRES is supporting regional and national climate change portals to increase access toand reach of climate change and disaster resilience information. This includes contributing toongoing maintenance and support of regional and national knowledge management portals,which are critical to their long-term sustainability.

Status: Completed

Global Climate Change Alliance Plus Scaling Up Pacific Adaptation (GCCA+ SUPA)

Project Coordinator: Mr Sitia Maheu

Objectives: The proposed Action takes place within the framework of an existing Financing Agreement between the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and the European Union (EU) for the implementation of the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus - Scaling-up Pacific Adaptation (GCCA+ SUPA) Programme. The Action contributes to the implementation of the regional component of this Programme. This action will be implemented in indirect management with the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), who will enter into a Co-Delegation Agreement with SPC as lead and coordinating organisation. A separate Grant Agreement for Euros 2.1 million will be signed between the European Commission and the University of the South Pacific (USP). Within a framework of close collaboration and integration, each of the three regional implementing organizations has responsibility for delivery of a specific output as further detailed below. The Overall Objective is to enhance climate change adaptation and resilience within ten Pacific Island countries. The Specific Objective is to strengthen the implementation of sector-based, but integrated, climate change and disaster risk management strategies and plans. The action will assist ten Pacific SIDS to address climate change impacts at the national, sub-national and community levels in a sustainable manner and for specific sectors. The activities will adopt a gender-sensitive and rights-based approach throughout.

Status: Completed

Climate Informationa and Early Warning System Project

The overall goal of the Programme is to increase the resilience of populations in the CookIslands, Niue, Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and Tuvalu to climate changeand climate-related hazards, through the delivery of timely, accurate and actionable climate andocean information and early warnings to facilitate climate-resilient policy, planning,preparedness and response actions.The Programme will establish integrated climate and ocean information services and multihazardearly warning systems (MHEWS) in five Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS):Cook Islands, Niue, Palau, RMI and Tuvalu.

Status: Current

Tuvalu Readiness-1 Project

        Institutional strengthening of Tuvalu's NDA and Preparation of Country Programme - The Tuvalu Readiness-1 project will highly support mechanisms on strengthening the NDA’s capacity and building on that capacity to deliver concise and effective measures in addressing climate finance, enhancing engagement with GCF, building on national stakeholders and private sectors, women and vulnerable groups communication whilst engaging them in decision making and voicing their opinions to build a reflective Country Programme and strategic framework.

Objectives: The project will supoort (i) strengthening the institutional capacity of the NDA to fulfil its role and obligations to the Green Climate Fund (‘the Fund’) and (ii) formulating a country programme to further enhance Tuvalu’s strategic engagement with the Fund. For the first component, the NDA will work closely with the delivery partner and national stakeholders to put in place new or improved mechanisms, procedures and processes for accessing, managing and monitoring climate finance. For the second component, the NDA will engage government, civil society organisations, private sector and island communities to develop a strategic framework of climate change investments that are appropriate, transformative, and scalable, and are aligned with Tuvalu’s national sustainable development and climate change priorities

Status: Current

Climate Security

Project Coordinator: Mr Saamu Tui Although climate change is cited as the most signifigant security threat to he south pacific, its likely effects on security and potential conflict are yet to be widely explored by the international an regional organisations present on the ground. Climate change in the pacific region has the potential for a myriad of cascading fragility and instability risks. These will affect men, women and youth differently, and vary across the region both according to timeframes under consideration and depending on the country context. There are a range of critical climate fragility risks emerging in the Pacific Region that will require greater examination, monitoring and coordinated action by many stakeholders at the national, regional and international level to prevent potential irrevesible economic, social, cultural and environmental damage with a range of potential security implications and a direct impact on social cohesion. Most critical issues amongst these include:

Status: Completed

Development of Tuvalu's National Adaptation Planning (NAP) to advance medium and long-term adaptation planning.

topography, size, geographical remoteness and access to resources. Despite these challenges, it has become a leading voice for enhanced climate mitigation regionally and globally. Tuvalu is now developing a national adaptation planning process (and NAP) that will form a sustainable platform for future adaptation investments.

Status: Current

Managing Coastal Aquifers Project (MCAP)

Project Coordinator: Mr Lono Leneuoti SIDS rely on small coastal aquifers for their water supply needs. These coastal aquifers are fragile thin freshwater lenses that float on the underlying denser seawater and are reliant on rainfall for recharge. These coastal aquifers are at higher risk of impact to water quality deterioration from threats including saltwater contamination from sea level rise, over abstraction, wave overtopping, loss of aquifer area through coastal erosion, and other impacts on water quality from inappropriate land-use activities. Climate change exacerbates these long-running threats to coastal aquifers through increased climate variability and climate extremes. The fragility of coastal fresh groundwater systems necessitates careful management and protection to ensure their long-term integrity and their role in climate change adaptation strategies and improved water security. The project aims at improving the understanding, use, management and protection of coastal aquifers towards enhanced water security, including in the context of a changing climate. More specifically it aims at 1) identifying the extent, threats and the development potential of groundwater resources, 2) increasing awareness of groundwater as a water security supply source, 3) providing options for improved access to groundwater and 4) and improving aquifer protection and management, within Pacific Small Island Developing States.

Status: Current

Tuvalu Third National Communication Project

Preparation of Third National Communication (TNC) under the UNFCCC   In relation to many SIDS, Tuvalu is extremely vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. Given that communities are very much aware of global warming and its damaging effects, they still continue to fight for their survival and future better livelihood. In every Conference of the Parties (COPs) and other Climate Change dialogues, Tuvalu continuously expressed a common phrase that “if you save Tuvalu, you save the world”. This is the Prime Minister’s impassioned phrasing challenging the parties to meet their obligations under the UNFCCC and its protocols. Ratifying the UNFCCC and its protocols including the Paris Agreement was part of Tuvalu obligation towards addressing climate change impacts. Generally, Tuvalu signed and ratified the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 8th June,1992 and has also ratified the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Having identifying detrimental environmental concerns such as coastal erosion, salt water intrusion and drought, it built efforts to develop its National Environmental Management Strategy (NEMS) in 1997, the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) in 2007 and other new climate policies and strategies to ensure policy actions are effectively in place as well environmental and socioeconomic safeguards including gender are respectfully realized and implemented.  

Status: Current

Managing Water Scarcity through Strengthened Water ResourcesManagement Project

Project Coordinator: Alamoana Tofuola Finance Assistance: Betty Fousaga The Managing Water Scarcity through Strengthened Water Resources Management project respondsto MFAT’s Water Security Strategic Approach to address the climate change-related water securitychallenges faced by Pacific Island Countries. The Project is being implemented by the PacificCommunity (SPC) over the three-year period from July 2020 to June 2023, and. builds upon the achievements, learnings, and enabling environments established through the MFAT-funded Strengthening Water Security of Vulnerable Island States (SWSVIS) project. This Project was also implemented by SPC and from 2015 to 2019 supported a range of activities to strengthenthe availability, reliability and quality of drinking water in vulnerable and isolated communities inthe Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. The SWSVIS project workedacross multiple sectors within the participating countries to help develop and implement a suite ofpractical measures and tools that strengthened local capacity to anticipate, prepare for and respondto the impacts of drought. The new Water Scarcity Project represents a significant scaling up andrefocusing of the activities implemented under the SWSVIS project. It aims to provide support tospecific water-scarce communities to actively manage resources to improve resilience, in order that:• Communities have the infrastructure and capability required to access, collect and store water.• Communities understand, protect and maintain water resources and infrastructure; and• Communities are sustainably using water resources and managing risk. Implementation of the Project is now commencing in each of the five atoll nations of the Cook Is-lands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu.

Status: Current

Institutional Strengthening of Pacific Island Countries to Adapt to Climate Change

Project Coordinator: Susan Tupulaga Contact: susapaul@gmail.com   ISAAC project is a 3 year project commencing in 2017 and funded by USAID and jointly implemented by SPC, SPREP and PIFS covering 4 countries including Tuvalu, Fiji, Palau and Samoa.  The main focal areas of ISAAC project are awreness and capacity building, policy development, climate change adaptation divided across three main key result areas;  1. Intergrated Institutional frameworks and national capacity stregthened 2. Accessing Climate Finance 3. Regional cooperation and corrdination and stregthening Some of the project's achievements include;  1. supporting the NIE accrediation process in providing assistance to develop tools under Ministry of Finance 2.Supporting review of Environmental Impact Assessment 3. Establishment of Environmental Social Safeguard (ESS) as one of the requirement for NIE Accreditation process 4. Development of Payout policy and methodology for the Tuvalu Survival Fund 5. Supporting 20 students to persue Project Management IV Courses 6. Supporting the development of the Climate Change Web Portal 7. Contribute and participate in Awareness Activities 8. Establish Data and Information for vulnerable sectors (in progress) 9. Awareness activities on the tools/policy and regulation developed (for 2019)

Objectives: - is to strengthen the national institutional capacity of Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) to effectively plan, coordinate and respond to the adverse impacts of climate change and disaster risk. It is intended to build on existing multi-sector, whole of iland approaches that have been implemented successfully in other Pacific Countries.

Status: Completed