The Pacific Climate Change Roundtable hosted in Apia, Samoa from 12 – 14 May is covering a wide range of topics, hearing from different countries and activities in various panel sessions. The below are snapshots of the panel discussion on Resource Mobilisation – Managing climate change resources in the Pacific.
Mr. Sione Fulivai from Tonga shared how their country decided to develop their own trust fund, after partnering with various development partners. They developed this through a whole of country approach over many years working from the ground up with communities, to find out what they really wanted and needed. They engaged financial and legal experts right from the outset of this process, in developing the Climate Change Trust Fund Act, and this act will be tabled at the next session of parliament, accessible at the grass roots level from August 2015. You can access the powerpoint used during his presentation at: http://bit.ly/1FcDoBV 
Representing the Marshall Islands, Dr Riyad Mucadam, discussed their experiences with the Pacific Climate Change Finance Assessment Framework. Some of the lessons learned were that multi stakeholder partnerships worked best when an inclusive consultation process was undertaken. Moving forward, the Marshall Islands government would seek to have clear commitments in their national plan to allow for the inflow of funds into the national budget. Clear commitments for support by development partner and CROP agencies would help them implement their climate change adaptation activities. For the full powerpoint presentation: http://bit.ly/1zZbitK 
The government of Samoa has included disaster risk reduction as one of their development goals, according to Litara Taulealo from the Ministry of Finance. This required them to strengthen coordination and mainstreaming core processes, especially planning and budgets. They had to formalise structures and mechanisms for implementation and efficient allocation management and accounting for the use of resources. They learned that this strengthening of processes is a long-term process and requires the commitment of development partners and implementing agencies. The full powerpoint presentation can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/1QHBRaT
Accreditation as a National Implementing Agency to the Adaptation Fund is the approach Cook Islands government decided to take to access climate change adaptation funds. After an UNDP initial assessment of their NIE capability, the government understanding more about their gaps. According to Lavinia Tama, the Cook Islands Government had full ownership of their application and developed a roadmap to build systems and capability to address these gaps, which included their documentation capacity and reviewing their Anti-Corruption Activity Management policies. They also needed to review their procurement processes. Despite the complex and difficult path in attaining NIE accreditation, the process has enabled strengthening of their systems and assisted in the capacity building of government officers. They submitted their application late 2014, and have been in interactive dialogue with the accreditation panel since March 2015. The full powerpoint presentation can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/1bNYt9K
The government of Papua New Guinea has set clear policy intentions and processes for accessing climate finance. Gwen Sissiou said in their experience, accessing climate funding is very challenging with different procedures for every donor; it is important to have dialogue with development partners. Having clear policies helped assist their process of applying for funds. For PNG the way forward is to improve institutional capacity and national coordination as well as improving sub-level capacity to access and coordinate climate change activities. You can access the powerpoint used during his presentation at : http://bit.ly/1RBSO7W
The Pacific Climate Change Roundtable is held from 12 – 14 May in Apia, Samoa. The event in its current format has been coordinated by SPREP with guidance from a steering committee.
The PCCR has been made possible with support from the Government of Switzerland, Government of Samoa, Government of Australia, European Union, GIZ, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), University of the South Pacific (USP) and the Pacific Council of Churches (PCC). Additional funding support was provided by the EU-GIZ Adapting to Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (ACSE) Programme, and Climate Analytics through its High Level Support Mechanism (HLSM) project as well as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).. #pccr2015