Pacific Hub
The Pacific Hub is hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). It will collaborate with the Council of the Regional Organizations in the Pacific (CROP), government agencies and national stakeholders in the 15 Pacific ACP countries. SPREP is an intergovernmental organization comprised of 14 Pacific ACP member countries, seven other Pacific island states and territories and four metropolitan countries. SPREP’s mandate is to promote regional cooperation on environmental management and conservation in the Pacific, which includes support to the member countries on the implementation of MEAs. The target group for the Pacific Hub is the 15 Pacific ACP countries and their peoples – a total population of about six million. The target beneficiaries will primarily be Government officials, but also officials in local government and authorities, national stakeholders such as civil society organizations and the private sector. The Pacific Hub will foster building the intra-governmental networks necessary for cost-effective compliance with MEAs. The Pacific Hub will implement activities worth a total of €1.3 million over the four years. These activities will focus on providing technical assistance, training, and policy and advisory support services to enable participating countries to fulfill their MEA obligations.
The overall objective of the Pacific component is to strengthen and enhance the endogenous capacity of the 15 Pacific ACP countries (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu) to effectively implement and comply with MEAs and related commitments, and thereby improve management of the environment and the natural resources. This will address poverty alleviation in a sustainable development perspective and improve peoples' livelihoods, and address the adverse effects of climate change, loss of biodiversity, drought, land degradation, hazardous waste and other threats to the environment. The Pacific hub of the project is SPREP.
Capacity building activities are applied at both the national and regional level. Click here to see an interactive map summarising project activities to date.
Actions can be summarized in 6 main areas:
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Negotiation skills training: capacity for negotiation skills and MEA COP support is built through a programme of national and regional training workshops, and direct support at the MEA COP meetings;
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MEA mainstreaming support: integrated environmental assessment process, development of national integrated environmental policies, and knowledge management. Capacity is built by a programme of national support and training to improve processes and planning frameworks, as well as mentoring of key staff through the process;
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Technical assistance for Environmental Impact Assessments, by national level training;
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Regional coordination: between regional coordination mechanisms, other EC projects, and CROP agencies;
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Awareness raising and access to information on the MEAs, materials and information available on-line via the MEA Clearing House Mechanism housed on the SPREP webpage;
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South - South cooperation: a programme of professional exchanges between the hubs for the Pacific, Caribbean and African country groups.
The Pacific Hub will work with the following partners:
- Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific (CROP)
- UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (UNEP/ROAP)