27 Jul 2010

Pacific Islands need help with accessing climate change funds, says SPREP

8:07 pm on 27 July 2010

The Secretariat of the Pacific Environment Programme, or SPREP, says Pacific Island countries need more help with accessing funds made available to fight the impacts of climate change.

A new study to establish a Pacific Climate Change Fund has been launched to find ways of tackling the issue.

Espen Ronneberg from SPREP says there are concerns that while millions of dollars of funding is available at a global level, Pacific nations are missing out.

"One of the key issues is the complexity of the application process; having trained personnel in country who are familiar with the different product cycles of the different donors. Having the technical expertise in place to write up the proposals and then to manage them as well."

Espen Ronneberg says one solution could be to set up a team of experts who will assist Pacific countries in the application process for the funding.