Helping our Pacific neighbours
Cook Islander Chris Manu is helping five Pacific nations plan for climate change

Local consultant Chris Manu is better known as Vice President of the local Amateur Boxing Association and for being the key driver behind the successful and popular monthly boxing events at the Tupapa Youth centre.
What is not so well known is that Chris works for the Asia Development Bank (ADB) as a Climate Change Infrastructure Specialist. In a nutshell, his job is to identify and select adaptation projects for future climate change vulnerabilities.
Chris is in the phase of the plan known as Output 2 which involves five nations-Timor Leste, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Palau and the Marshall Islands.
Essentially he helps governments narrow down and prioritise projects. At the start, a country may have 200 possible projects to consider for funding. These need to be narrowed down.
Shortly, Chris will be off to Dili, Timor Leste to carry out assessments of water supply projects for future climate change. Last month he was in the Solomons. He has already visited Fiji, Palau and the Marshall Islands.
How did this project come about?
The Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are among the most vulnerable nations threatened by climate change. The Pacific Islands Forum leaders have long recognized that climate change is a priority development issue, and a concerted global effort will have to be taken to halt, or at least slow down, the onset of climate change as articulated in the 2008 Niue Declaration on Climate Change. The Pacific DMCs have begun to mainstream climate change considerations into their national policies and planning processes, and have requested technical and financial assistance from ADB, in the course of their consultations during the preparation of the country partnership strategies (CPSs) and country operations business plans (COBPs), to enable them to take the process further. At the 19th Pacific DMCs Governors Meeting, the Pacific DMC governors requested ADB to consider establishing a regional climate change fund to support programs and projects aimed at strengthening adaptation measures prioritized by the Pacific DMCs. The ADB Pacific Department (PARD) has responded positively, with a commitment to provide a broad spectrum of assistance in implementing national plans for climate change adaptation and mitigation through the Climate Change Implementation Plan (CCIP) for the Pacific, and to work in conjunction with other international and intergovernmental plans to tackle climate change impacts.
The Technical Assistance (TA) will have three main outputs: (i) the Pacific Climate Change Program (PCCP),
(ii) adaptation preparation in selected Pacific DMCs, and (iii) the promotion of a mitigation
strategy in selected Pacific DMCs and identification of mitigation projects for the CDM.
Output 2: Adaptation preparation in selected Pacific DMCs.
Up to five Pacific DMCs will be selected, based on a set of criteria, and supported in preparing the implementation of climate change adaptation plans, including further capacity building.
This will be done initially by:
(i) facilitating the creation or supporting an existing climate change coordinating mechanism (e.g., focal point) to assist the Pacific DMCs in building their capacity for adaptation planning at national and local levels, and (ii) reinforcing linkages among the many possible adaptation entry points to contribute to a more integrated strategy.
This output will comprise (i) strengthening institutional capacity to prepare and assess climate-oriented environmental assessments; (ii) development of an information system for multi-sector climate change vulnerability and adaptation (V&A) assessment; (iii) mainstreaming of climate risk management and adaptation policies and measures; and (iv) design of pilot adaptation projects, based on the prior V&A assessment and geographic information system (GIS) mapping, in priority sectors.
How many consultants are involved?
The TA will require the services of 48 international and 243 national consultants under specific TA outputs.
Output 2 consultants are composed of: (i) climate change adaptation specialist, (ii) environment and natural resources specialists, (iii) infrastructure specialist, (iv) GIS specialist, (v) communication specialist, and (vi) gender specialist. -Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 554 09 March
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- Briefs from PM’s media conference Tuesday
- Tourism Industry ponders $5 million draft strategy
- Norman George resigns from Cook Islands Party
- Letter of Resignation from CIP
- Norman selfish says Prime Minister