MAINSTREAMING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN THE PACIFIC

Climate change risks that impact development in the Pacific region will be with us for a long time.Social, economic, political and environmental development goals will not be achieved in the region ifclimate change risks are not given consideration at all phases of the development process. This guideprovides a practical tool for planners and practitioners at the national level, as well as supporting theclimate change mainstreaming efforts of regional organisations and partners.The Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) project, implemented by the Secretariat of the PacificRegional Environment Programme (SPREP), has put together this guide as a response to the needfrom PACC-participating countries to integrate climate change risks into their national and sectorstrategies and plans, and budgetary processes. The relevance of this guide will not only be limited toPACC, but will be applicable to other climate change and risk management projects that are currentlybeing implemented in the region or are currently at the development phase.SPREP gratefully acknowledges the funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and technicalguidance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), provided through the PACCproject, which made the development of this guide possible. Up-scaling and replication of somenational PACC activities has already commenced in some countries using added financial resourcesfrom AusAID. We look forward to further support in this area, and for other mainstreaming efforts inthe region.The support of regional organisations and partners in the development of this guide, such as theSecretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC); Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit(GIZ); and the Pacific Regional and Samoa National Offices of UNDP, are also gratefully acknowledged,as is the work of the consultant, Dr. Padma Lal Climate change mainstreaming is about integrating climate risks into development planning processesand decision-making. This means incorporating climate risk considerations into every aspect of thepolicy and project development process. This applies to all key Government agencies and sectors (e.g.Finance, Planning, Health, Agriculture, and Environment), and all levels of government (i.e. nationaland sub-national).This can be thought of as applying a ‘climate lens’ to the work the Government is already doing. Thatis, analysing each stage of policy and project formulation from a climate risk perspective, so thatthe policy or project under consideration is more effective at reaching its original objectives, do notcreate or increases vulnerability and sustainable.For some policy and projects, climate risk will be a major consideration and will require substantiveanalytical inputs. For others, climate risk may be a very minor consideration and thus would onlywarrant a small amount of analytical work. Mainstreaming climate risks should further be thought ofas a process rather than as a goal. Outputs of mainstreaming exercises are just a means to an end, withthe end being the actual development outcomes.