Island Resilience Initiative

The Global Island Partnership (GLISPA), the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) and Precovery Lab conducted consultative meetings in three Pacific island countries to establish the Island Resilience Initiative (IRI) in those three countries in that initial phase of the IRI. These were Palau, Marshall Islands and Fiji. Read more about these consultations here.

Objective

With the leadership of Palau, Marshall Islands and Fiji, the Island Resilience Initiative is building capacity for nationally-led public-private civic partnerships to drive implementation of the SDGs and other global agreements locally. The framework leverages proven island-led models to:

IRI 1.0

• Identify, support and strengthen local collaborative public-private civic partnerships focused on system-level change;
• Initiate the framework to implement SDGs locally, which includes a longer-term process to set high-level goals, develop shared measures to be tracked on an online platform, and develop a project pipeline to achieve 2030 goals.

IRI 2.0

• Launch a project pipeline development process, the Island Resilience Solution Prize, to catalyze innovative investments in integrated infrastructure in islands that can be financed through sources such as the Green Climate Fund and be a catalyst for public-private civic partnerships;
• Launch a peer-learning network coordinated by the Global Island Partnership and Hawai‘i Green Growth to support high-level goal development, commitments as well as coordination of the public-private civic partnerships

IRI 1.0 Bright Spots

Successful national stakeholder consultations were held in each country in early 2018 each convening a broad range of stakeholder groups from Government, CSOs and the private sector. The consultations resulted in:

• Engaged the diverse range of stakeholders into creating an action plan to mobilize implementation of the SDGs;
• Developed a framework for coordination and collaboration from national to global levels to share lessons and work toward long-term goals. The Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) coordinated with the national focal points. The Global Island Partnership and Hawaii Green Growth help to interconnect the national efforts with their experiences in other islands and resilience champions globally;
• Prioritization of the SDGs based on national priorities and around the SDG pillars (energy, food, water, equity, environment, and community). This helped the countries align existing commitments to help focus their efforts and resources as well as mobilize greater interest in implementation;
• Established an approach to launch online dashboards to measure progress toward the goals and demonstrate the important contribution of islands globally to the SDGs.

The Island Resilience Initiative is supported at the highest political levels in each of the three countries and viewed as an opportunity to strengthen partnerships and implementation of the SAMOA Pathway, SDGs, Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework and the emerging New Urban Agenda as well as the regionally developed Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific (FRDP). The Initiative will reinforce ambitious but appropriate and “right-sized” projects and solutions on islands that can be scaled and financed globally. It will also provide a platform for the establishment of larger, innovative impact dashboards and national and regional interventions.

Read more in this brief in either A4 version or A3 version (for A3 printing).

Contact

For further information contact Mark Borg or Vili Kasanawaqa