The Pacific Resilience Fund is transforming
History:
Initially, PPP created the fund to accommodate a growing desire in the Global North to support Pacific Islanders’ long-term efforts to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. The intention was to support programs that build communities’ long term resilience to climate change. This responsive and community directed fund filled gaps at the grassroots level following major disasters in the South Pacific; however, it is not a disaster relief program.
The Pacific Resilience Fund is supported by PPP’s ongoing work in longer term climate resilience programming and advocacy. Highlights have included empowering youth, in Port Vila, Vanuatu; Kastom Food Security, Erromango, Vanuatu; and rebuilding Loreto School in Levuka, Fiji.
Context:
The South Pacific region experiences among the highest frequency and severity of natural disasters in the world. This vulnerability continues to increase each year with the intensifying negative impacts of climate change. In 2007, the IPCC reported that the countries of the South Pacific are among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change.
Disaster response efforts aim to meet the life preservation and basic subsistence needs of people affected. This short term assistance in the aftermath of disasters is supported by long term climate adaptation strategies, which aim to limit harm during the inevitable impacts of climate change (i.e. storm surge barriers), as well as long term climate mitigation strategies, which aim to limit the degree of climate change (i.e. transitioning to clean energy).
International support for small-medium scale community initiatives in the South Pacific are lacking. Inspired by the effects of disasters on their own family and friends in the South Pacific, Pacific Peoples’ Partnership endeavored to create a small and responsive fund called the ‘Pacific Resilience Fund’. Communities can apply directly to the fund to finance small-medium scale initiatives that increase the social, cultural and physical resilience of their community to the impacts of climate change.
Your generous donations towards the Pacific Resilience Fund have allowed Loreto School in Levuka, Fiji to build stronger and modernized school buildings, Wan Smol Bag in Port Vila, Vanuatu to reconfigure existing buildings into disaster evacuation spaces (and create new spaces for youth arts programming in the process), and the Erromango Cultural Association in Erromango, Vanuatu to increase food security during disasters by training community members in traditional food preservation methods.
The Pacific Resilience Fund, supported through the generosity of people like you, is directly available to South Pacific communities to invest in their resilience to climate change.
URGENT APPEAL – PPP has just issued an urgent fundraising appeal to help respond to COVID and Cyclone Harold. Read more and contribute HERE