The inaugural meeting and onboarding of the first Pacific cohort of climate finance advisors was held online on 01 February 2022.
The overall training aimed to ensure that the advisors have a thorough understanding of climate finance, policy, and stakeholders in their respective countries and throughout the region.
It was coordinated through the Climate Finance Access Network (CFAN), a division of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), with the support of regional agencies in the Pacific, including the Pacific Climate Change Centre (PCCC) hosted at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Apia, Samoa.
As a regional Centre of excellence for training, capacity development, climate change information, research, and innovation, the PCCC, among other organisations, will be delivering modules as part of the training for the Pacific climate finance advisors’ cohort between February – April 2022.
“As an information and training hub on climate change, the PCCC acts as a knowledge broker by linking existing training that are available and designing and facilitating new training courses that are specific for the Pacific,” said ‘Ofa Ma’asi-Kaisamy, Manager, PCCC, during the introductory presentation of the PCCC.
The team from the PCCC will coordinate Module 5 on ‘Facilitation, Communication and Empowerment.’ While the first four modules will introduce advisors to the concepts, modalities, and information on the world of climate finance, Module 5 will explore the context and realities of climate financing in the Pacific, how it works on the ground in-country and with local communities, and the linkages to regional organisations and banks/facilities. The PCCC will also organise various platforms and activities that will provide skills for learning, practice and sharing of knowledge in conducting work around climate finance knowledge and tools to facilitate, communicate and empower climate finance in the Pacific.
“There is real need to support access to climate finance in Pacific Island countries. We are some of the most climate-vulnerable communities in the world but also have such limited financial and human resources to address this vulnerability at the scale and pace that is needed. This training programme will support our partner governments with the advisers who can focus on this issue and help governments access the funding to support their resiliency aims,” said Lano Fonua, CFAN Advisor, Tonga (Incoming) following the launch of the Pacific cohort. Fonua is one of five advisors joining this training programme.
Five advisors from Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Tuvalu joined the first meeting and will continue to complete the modules as they become available in February. The PCCC acknowledges the partnership with CFAN as a Training and Affiliate member and looks forward to similar trainings in the future.
This story was written by Sosikeni Lesa, originally published at SPREP on 08 February 2022, reposted via PACNEWS.
