Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change Review meeting underway

A week long review meeting for the Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) is officially underway at the Le Lagon Conference Room in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

PACC is a 13 million dollar project that supports adaptation to climate change projects in three main areas – food security and production, coastal management and water resources management.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is an implementing partner with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The second Multipartite Review Meeting brought in over 50 participants that include regional partners, stakeholders and the 13 member countries in the Pacific to review the PACC progress, discuss policy, technical and operational issues and recommendations for the decision of the MPR participants.
In his opening address, the Acting Director of SPREP, Mr. Kosi Latu, briefly highlighted the efforts of the PACC project at national and regional level since its inception in 2009.

“A number of lessons were learned during the year in particular the “one-to-one” mentoring approach of working with countries has enabled the PACC team at SPREP to take the national coordinators and their core teams through the “how to” develop their work plans,” said Mr Latu.
“The PACC unit at SPREP has also had the opportunity to better understand the difficulties that coordinators have in particular with financial processes at the national level and to find ways with the coordinators to address these issues.”

The UNDP Resident Representative Samoa, Ms Nileema Noble said, “This meeting is happening at a very important juncture and considerable investment has been made in the PACC Project.”

“The PACC Project is to now go beyond and catalyse changes in the lives in the Pacific, we’d like to see member countries reflect in their reports how PACC is actually building resilience in the region, and capturing the impact it is having on the Pacific people.”

Speaking on behalf of the host country, the Vanuatu Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Director General Mr Morris Kaloran said the PACC is a massive initiative that comes with a diversity of administrative challenges, both at the regional and national levels.

“The PACC project provides us with such an opportunity with its two pronged approach that entails interventions on the ground and at the policy level to build solid resilience across the Pacific.”

“We have a good board in place that is very knowledgeable of the project and have made some key decisions that have improved implementation,” said Mr Taito Nakalevu, the PACC Project Manager.

“We hope to continue to have the support of the board as we move into the future particularly with the opportunity to have the PACC as the implementation framework for adaptation projects in the region aiming for more donors to contribute more funding into the PACC.”

The present board is a combination of members with both technical and policy expertise. Melanesia is represented by the Solomon Islands, Micronesia is represented by the Federated States of Micronesia and Polynesia is represented by Niue. The board is chaired by the Resident representative of the UNDP multi country office in Samoa and the Deputy chair is the Acting Director of SPREP, with the University of the South Pacific representing the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific.

They are charged with providing guidance and assistance with financing, project management, technical support and administration for the Project Management Unit based at SPREP. The board is also responsible for making key decisions for the project.

“One of the key items of the agenda for discussion this week includes progressing the work of the project to ensure quality work done on the ground in the region over the next few years as well as future opportunities for the PACC project.”

Countries that are part of the PACC include Nauru, Niue, Marshall Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu who are focusing on addressing water resources management; Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have national projects to help increase food security and food production with; Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Federated States of Micronesia addressing coastal erosion management.

The week-long meeting is set from the 8th to the 12th August, 2011.
For more information on PACC please visit:

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