Unlocking Access to Climate Finance for Pacific Island Countries

Unlocking Access to Climate Finance for Pacific Island Countries
Author: Ms. Manal Fouad
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 103
Release: 2021-09-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513594222

This departmental paper provides an in-depth overview of access to climate finance for Pacific Island Countries, evaluating successes and challenges faced by countries and proposes a way forward to unlock access to climate funds.

Understanding Oceania

Understanding Oceania
Author: Stewart Firth
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1760462896

This book is inspired by the University of the South Pacific, the leading institution of higher education in the Pacific Islands region. Founded in 1968, USP has expanded the intellectual horizons of generations of students from its 12 member countries—Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu—and been responsible for the formation of a regional elite of educated Pacific Islanders who can be found in key positions in government and commerce across the region. At the same time, this book celebrates the collaboration of USP with The Australian National University in research, doctoral training, teaching and joint activities. Twelve of our 19 contributors gained their doctorates at ANU, most of them before or after being students and/or teaching staff at USP, and the remaining five embody the cross-fertilisation in teaching, research and consultancy of the two institutions. The contributions to this collection, with a few exceptions, are republications of key articles on the Pacific Islands by scholars with extensive experience and knowledge of the region.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands
Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 25
Release: 2018-03-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484346173

This Selected Issues paper sets out options to demonstrate how the authorities could supplement their cash balance target and public debt limit with an anchor to help discipline annual budget decisions. The paper introduces the current fiscal framework and effective fiscal rules based on international experiences, including the characteristics of each rule. It also discusses the need for a new fiscal anchor, given high revenue volatility, high infrastructure needs, and the country’s exposure and vulnerability to natural disasters. Contingency warrants for unforeseen expenditures, including from natural disasters, should be included in the budget in line with international best practices. Furthermore, if a disaster does not occur, this allocation could be saved in a contingency fund for natural disasters, which would enable swift disbursement in the aftermath of the disaster. The fund would be set up once fiscal buffers have been rebuilt. The IMF Staff suggests a target for the overall fiscal deficit of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product as a possible fiscal anchor, which would strike a balance between safeguarding debt sustainability and addressing the severe infrastructure gap.

Republic of Nauru

Republic of Nauru
Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 84
Release: 2023-11-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Nauru faces structural challenges due to its small size and remoteness, and is highly dependent on imports. The narrow revenue base comprises fishing license fees, residual phosphate processing, and revenue from the Regional Processing Center (RPC). Nauru is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change, as the population inhabit in a narrow coastal area. The health and economic impact of the pandemic has been limited in Nauru, thanks to successful vaccination and containment strategies

Pacific Regional Synthesis for The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture

Pacific Regional Synthesis for The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 77
Release: 2019-12-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9251320403

The Pacific Regional Synthesis for The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture summarizes the state of biodiversity for food and agriculture in the region, based largely on information provided in ten country reports submitted to FAO as part of the reporting process for the report on The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture. Biodiversity for food and agriculture is the diversity of plants, animals and micro-organisms at genetic, species and ecosystem levels present in and around crop, livestock, forest and aquatic production systems. It is essential to the structure, functions and processes of these systems, to livelihoods and food security, and to the supply of a wide range of ecosystem services. It has been managed or influenced by farmers, livestock keepers, forest dwellers, fish farmers and fisherfolk for hundreds of generations. The report was originally prepared as supporting documentation for an informal regional consultation on the state of the Pacific region’s biodiversity for food and agriculture, held in Nadi, Fiji, in May 2016. It was later revised based on feedback received from the participants of the informal consultation. It provides a description of the drivers of change affecting the region’s biodiversity for food and agriculture and of its current status and trends. It also discusses the state of efforts to promote the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity for food and agriculture in the region, including through the development of supporting policies, legal frameworks, institutions and capacities.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals

The Sex Lives of Cannibals
Author: J. Maarten Troost
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2004-06-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0767915305

At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life). With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost has delivered one of the most original, rip-roaringly funny travelogues in years—one that will leave you thankful for staples of American civilization such as coffee, regular showers, and tabloid news, and that will provide the ultimate vicarious adventure.

A Sustainable Future for Small States

A Sustainable Future for Small States
Author: Resina Katafono
Publisher: Commonwealth Secretariat
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2017-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849291632

A Sustainable Future for Small States: Pacific 2050 is part of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s regional strategic foresight programme that examines whether current development strategies set the region on a path to achieve sustainable development by 2050. The study analyses whether Commonwealth Pacific small states (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu) will achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It reviews critical areas that can serve as a catalyst for change in the region: governance (examining political governance, development effectiveness and co-ordination, and ocean governance); non-communicable diseases; information and communications technology and climate change (focussing on migration and climate change, and energy issues). In each of these areas, possible trajectories to 2050 are explored, gaps in the current policy responses are identified, and recommendations are offered to steer the region towards the Pacific Vision of ‘a region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity, so that all Pacific people can lead free, healthy, and productive lives’.

Commercial Law and Practice in the South Pacific

Commercial Law and Practice in the South Pacific
Author: Mohammed L. Ahmadu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1135334404

Commerce has become an area of central importance to the South Pacific region. Although the countries are small it is widely acknowledged that their need to promote and develop commercial enterprise is crucial for their future sustainability. This new textbook is the first to examine the main areas of commercial law in the common law jurisdictions of the South Pacific region. These jurisdictions include the Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Niue, Nauru, (Western) Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The text is divided into six parts each with its own introduction to aid the reader through each particular area. Utilising both a structural and transactional approach it examines: the establishment and termination of commercial organizations the internal and external relations within and between organizations the legal principles applicable to various kinds of commercial dealings eg. insurance, sale of goods, bills of exchange aspects of foreign trade and international commerce relevant to the region. Knowledge of the legal principles that regulate commercial activity within the South Pacific Region is essential for the communities themselves and for those from outside interested in doing business in the area. Students studying commercial law in the region will find this textbook essential reading as will those involved, or seeking to become involved, in commercial activity there