27 March 2024, Funafuti, Tuvalu – Tuvalu is one step closer to the completion of its National Adaptation Plan, with the conclusion of a series of sector-specific stakeholder workshops organised under the Tuvalu National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Project, a three-year, USD $3 million project aimed at developing a medium to long-term NAP which consolidates adaptation priorities for six of Tuvalu’s major sectors.
The three-day programme included face-to-face consultations with representatives of Tuvalu’s Agriculture, Coastal Protection, Disaster Management, Fisheries, Health, and Water sectors where they were presented with the preliminary findings of a Climate Impacts, Vulnerability, and Risks Assessment (CIVRA) conducted by the Commonwealth Scientific, Industrial, and Research Organisation (CSIRO) and its partner Deloitte.
The risks and risk statements identified by the CIVRA project for all six sectors were presented to the sector experts, who were then given time to look into them and identify any gaps or missing information that would need to be included in the final CIVRA report, which provides the science-based evidence to inform the risks that will feed into the development of the Tuvalu NAP.
An all-sector workshop was held on the final day, bringing together all the different sectors along with other stakeholders from government, civil societies, and non-governmental organisation to provide their consolidated feedback on the findings of the study.
“Over the last two days, we broke up the sectors and presented their individual risk statements. For the final day of the workshop, we hosted a plenary type of discussion across all sectors to get their feedback on the risk statements that were presented to them during the sector specific sessions,” said Dr Geoff Gooley, CSIRO Project Manager.
Participants were then asked to vote for each of the risks to identify the most significant ones that should be prioritised. Water-related risks received the majority of votes – with risks to water availability, demand, and quality followed by water infrastructure being featured. Public health and health infrastructure followed closely behind in terms of priorities.
Mr Lolo Leneuoti, M Project Coordinator for the Managing Coastal Aquifer Project within the Climate Change Department said that this accurately reflects the lived realities for the people of Tuvalu. Water continues to be a priority issue for them.
“I’m very glad that the findings of the study and the discussions we’ve had this week reflect what the people of Tuvalu are facing. Access to water and water infrastructure are a big challenge for households and this is something I am hoping the NAP will provide solutions for,” Mr Leneuoti added.
The next steps of the NAP progress will see the development of the initial draft of the final CIVRA report and key findings by CSIRO and Deloitte. This is expected to be completed by the end of April, and will then be sent to the Project Management Unit (PMU) based with the Climate Change Department of Tuvalu to share with the sector stakeholders to ensure that the discussions were fully capture and reflected in the final report.
The Project Manager of the PMU, Ms Fa’atupu Simeti, said that the turn-out over the three days of the workshop was better than expected, and the discussions were able to capture feedback from a wide range of stakeholders within the priority sectors which will greatly help the CSIRO and Deloitte teams in drafting the final CIVRA report.
“I thought the workshops were a success, given the great turn-out we had throughout the week. The information that was discussed this week was very helpful, not only for the development of the NAP but for the stakeholders to be aware of for their planning purposes,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the adaptation options that will be identified from this work and how they can help address the issues and risks that were discussed this week,” she added.
The Tuvalu NAP is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
For more information, please contact Ms Filomena Nelson, SPREP Climate Change Adaptation Adviser, at [email protected].
