14 May 2024, Nauru - The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is helping to build a more resilient environment for Nauru by working with the Government to develop a Strategic Partnership Framework (SPF).
A SPF is a high-level agreement that identifies a member country’s environment and resilience priorities and confirms mutual commitments between the member and the Secretariat for addressing these priorities.
The work in Nauru commenced on 23 and 24 April 2024 when a delegation from SPREP visited the country and met with representatives of the Department of Environment, Management and Agriculture (DEMA), the Department of Climate Change and National Resilience (DCCNR), and the Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation (NRC). Mr Bryan Star, Nauru’s focal point and the Director for DEMA, welcomed the commencement of the process.
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“Like most Pacific island countries, Nauru is at the forefront of the impacts of the triple planetary crisis, which has already affected our communities. We need to do everything possible to protect and build the resilience of our people to be able to withstand these impacts,” he said.
“We welcome the opportunity engage and work with SPREP, and all our partners, to begin this very important process of developing a Strategic Partnership Framework for Nauru. It’s very important that we are able to identify our resilience priorities and share them with the Secretariat so we can see how we work to achieve our common goals. We need to plan and think strategically about how we are going to address the challenges before us today.”
SPREP’s delegation was headed by Mr Jope Davetanivalu, the Director of Environmental Monitoring and Governance. He was accompanied by Ms Melanie Bradley, SPREP’s Strategic Planning Adviser; Mr Dale Withington, SPREP’s Northern Pacific Office Manager; and Ms Rebecca Polestico, SPREP’s Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser.
“I want to acknowledge and thank the Government of Nauru for the fruitful discussions we were able to have during our time there,” said Mr Davetanivalu. “SPREP has a mandate to promote cooperation in the Pacific region and provide assistance in order to protect and improve its environment and to ensure sustainable development for present and future generations. The work to develop a Strategic Partnership Framework is a key part of this.”
During the meetings with the Nauru Government, the SPREP team explained the rationale of an SPF; highlighted the objectives and benefits; provided the background and outlined the process for formulating a framework. Another key part of the work was the consultation on environment and resilience priorities for Nauru, to establish the direction and foundation of the SPF.
The consultation process was based on activities listed in SPREP’s 2024-2025 Performance Implementation Plan (PIP), directly linked to the regional goals and outcomes in SPREP’s Strategic Plan 2017-2026.
“We believe it is very important to map Nauru’s environment and resilience priorities and place that alongside our Strategic Plan, so we know how SPREP will support Nauru to meet its commitments under its National Integrated Environment Policy and National Climate Change Policy, and with implementation of its Environmental Management and Climate Change Act 2020.
“One of the main objectives of SPFs is to better coordinate SPREP’s work in-country, and we feel this is a very important step.”
The 31st SPREP Meeting in 2023 reconfirmed the Secretariat’s commitment to work with members to develop Country and Territory Strategic Partnership Frameworks (CTSPFs), in line with the CTSPF process endorsed at the 2nd Executive Board Meeting in 2020. At the 31st SPREP Meeting, the Secretariat signed its first SPF with Palau.
Following the SPREP mission in Nauru in April, a draft of the SPF is being prepared by SPREP. This will be shared with Nauru and from there the Department of Environmental Management and Agriculture (DEMA) will lead the consultation process with relevant Government Departments and agencies, and also with other environment and resilience partners.