CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Van Veldhuizen, Maria |
|---|---|
| Title | Regional Organisations and Climate Change Adaptation in Pacific Island Developing States: An Analysis of the Regional Institutional Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific Small Island Developing States and Territories |
| Summary | Climate change is projected to impact all aspects of life in the Pacific small island developing states and territories (PSIDST) within the coming decades, and effective adaptation is urgently needed. Out of frustration with the impasse in global climate change action, the PSIDST have begun organising their climate change adaptation on the regional scale, through a number of regional organisations, particularly the Pacific Islands Forum, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the Pacific Islands Development Forum and the University of the South Pacific. The literature offers a number of criteria for successful regional organisations dealing with climate change, but the Pacific regional organisations fail to meet most of them and therefore do not provide the benefits of organising climate change action on the regional scale as opposed to the global scale. In a series of interviews with officials it was found that thus far very few practical adaptation projects have been carried out, and that most adaptation funding is spent on external consultants writing policies and strategies which are not implemented. The most important obstacles for effective climate change adaptation in the PSIDST are: a lack of coordination among regional organisations and donors, a lack of core funding in regional organisations, too much control by donors over the functioning of the regional organisations and a lack of capacity in the PSIDST. In order to improve the system and the effectiveness of climate change adaptation projects, the regional organisations should commit to more coordination and cooperation and take a long-term, programmatic approach to climate change adaptation, donors should provide the regional organisations with more core funding and make more use of human capacity in the region, and the PSIDST should make an effort to reduce corruption and increase their national institutional capacity. |
| Supervisor | McGinnis, Michael; Gilchrist, Anna |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/veldhuizen_maria.pdf |
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