Rights-based approach, Gender and Social Inclusion Workshop a Success
16 June 2022
A two-day training on the Rights-based approach, Gender and Social Inclusion was recently held at The University of the South Pacific (USP).
The training was supported through the European Union fund Intra-ACP GCCA+ Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience (PACRES) and the Global Climate Change Alliance Plus Scaling Up Pacific Adaptation (GCCA+ SUPA) Project.
The objective of the two-day training was to; build the capacity of our change agents in rights-based approaches and introduce concepts around Rights Holders and Duty Bearers; and their importance in the review and revision of any development plan, particularly local development plans that will contribute to climate change and disaster resilience and sustainable development.
In her opening remarks, the Director of the Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), Professor Elisabeth Holland, said: “I’d like to thank everyone for their contributions and the excellent coordination that brought everyone together today on the same page on this extremely important issue”.
“One of the reasons why I feel like this is a very important issue, and under that umbrella of climate mobility, there is just so much about human rights, gender and social inclusion that we need to consider, and that’s why I appreciate everyone’s role here is working on exploring the varies expects of resilience and why we bring this Rights-based Approach, Gender, Social Inclusion to the table and to ensure that we are resilient as possible facing the challenges disaster and climate change.”
The two-day training drew over 200 participants from 15 Pacific Island countries in 12 physical hubs and connected through zoom. As change agents, USP students and staff joined physically at the Fiji hub.
The Solomon Islands’ Research & Community Officers (RCO) for the PACRES project, Ms Noella Dorevella, said, “I valued this workshop as extremely relevant for us as a Small Island Developing Country. The training provides invaluable insights for us change agents to achieve a transformative and sustainable change within an ecosystem, considering gender and social inclusion barriers. The topic of equality is often preached; however, it is least practised due to lack of knowledge around appropriate and contextualised tools.”
“It was a first for the Palau participants, and we learned a lot from the workshop. We would like to involve more people should there be another training”, remarked a change agent from Palau.
Ms Rose Martin facilitated the workshop from The Pacific Community (SPC) Human Rights and Social Development Division.
The USP component of the EU-funded Intra-ACP GCCA+ PACRES programme is implemented in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the Pacific Community (SPC), and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), while the SUPA Project is being implemented with SPREP and SPC.