University hosts launch of U.S. Government Climate Change Projects
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 | Ambassador Reed, USAID Mission Director, Gloria Steele and Vice-Chancellor and President of USP, Professor Chandra (centre), view displays featuring U.S. Government's Climate Change Projects in the Pacific. |
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The United States Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu, Her Excellency Frankie A. Reed and the visiting U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director for the Philippines and the Pacific Islands, Gloria D. Steele led the launch of the U.S. Government's new projects aimed at helping Pacific islands adapt to climate change.
"Today, we launch USAID’s new projects that will help communities in the Pacific region to adapt to the effects of global climate change, which is crucial in sustaining economic development," Ambassador Reed said at the USAID Day launch held at the University of the South Pacific in Suva on 5 March, 2013.
The Ambassador and the USAID Mission Director were accompanied by the Vice-Chancellor and President of USP, Professor Rajesh Chandra, and other guests, in viewing the display booths featuring nine USAID global climate change initiatives in the region, including its new assistance projects.
Professor Chandra said that climate change was a central feature of the University's new six-year Strategic Plan 2013-2018.
Under the new Strategic Plan, the University, amongst other things, will focus on providing leadership in areas such as Pacific arts, climate change, and oceans, entrepreneurialism, and being a regional exemplar in order to achieve excellence by USP’s 50th anniversary in 2018.
The Vice-Chancellor said the University was focused on providing good quality climate services to people in the region.
“We do offer many advantages to USAID in the sense of training the leaders of Pacific islands in shaping their consciousness in working together in the region because our future is much brighter if we cooperate,” he added.
New USAID projects include the following:
· US$ 23.6m Coastal Community Adaptation project - helps build the resiliency of vulnerable coastal communities in the Pacific to withstand more intense and frequent weather events and ecosystem degradation in the short term, and sea-level rise in the long term;
· US$ 7.5m Mangrove Rehabilitation for Sustainably-Managed, Healthy Forests (MARSH) project - help restore degraded mangrove forests in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu by providing training for community-based, sustainable mangrove forest management and reforestation and strengthening the technical and scientific capacity for forest carbon monitoring, reporting and verification;
· US$1.5m Vocational Training and Education for Clean Energy (VOCTEC) project - partners with educational institutions in the Pacific to strengthen the cadre of qualified engineers and technicians to design, install, operate, maintain and repair solar photovoltaic energy equipment in the Pacific; and
· US$690k USAID-U.S. Peace Corps Partnership - builds the capacity of remote communities for adaptation to climate change and disaster risk reduction in Vanuatu, Fiji, and Micronesia.
The U.S. Government development assistance in the Pacific Islands region covers 12 nations: Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
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