LIVING IN A "BORROWED TIME"

A mother from Sikaiana Atoll cleaning her swamp taro garden, badly impacted by climate change.

With Climate Change taking its toll on low lying islands in the Solomon Islands, 'food security' is severely impacted.  

Coastal erosion, vanishing islands, and food shortage are now becoming the new normal- impacting lives.

SIBC travelled to the Malaita Outliers of Lord Howe and Sikaiana atolls and discovered how communities cope under hazardous effects.  

One of the Chiefs spoken to is Chief William Kameru:

"I am about to die, yet my sadness grows every day. I am happy to see my grandchildren and my community growing, but my question still is, where would they be in the next 50 years?" 

Solomon Islands climate change activist, Lawrence Makili showing the impact of climate change in Avaha Island, Lord Howe

The remoteness of the atolls, poses even serious health risk of starvation and malnutrition as the islanders depend almost entirely on manufactured foods from Honiara, where transport difficulty is an added challenges. 

"With salt water intrusion into our swamp taro gardens, our only staple food, we are now depending on manufactured foods
from Honiara. Our children's health is at stake," says one of the young men, George Akolu.

A month ago, a group of chiefs from the Lord Howe Atoll accepted the challenge and risked crossing the Rocardo reef on open boats to protest against government services, not reaching them. 

"Sikaiana and Lord Howe atolls were always the heart of our leaders discussion whenever they attended international climate change summits.

But for tangible climate change resilience activities to be seen in  our communities, nothing's happened. The government must know 
we are Solomon Islanders too. We were desperately needs relocation."

With ongoing climate resilience effort among Pacific Islands, regional Leaders have launched a "Blue Pacific Continent Strategy" which specifically targets mitigating climate change effects in the Pacific. 

by Charley Piringi


  
  
  

ADB supports Pacific Disaster Resilience Program

Malau Lalo Island, Makira Province, Solomon Islands.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved 24-million dollars in contingent disaster financing for the second phase of the Pacific Disaster Resilience Program.

This is aimed at strengthening and boosting disaster resilience efforts in Solomon Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands and Tonga.

ADB's assistance will include a 3-million dollars policy-based loan and a 3-million dollars grant to Solomon Islands, and grants worth 6-million dollars each to FSM, the Marshall Islands, and Tonga. 

A statement from ADB said all the grants are financed from the ADB's grant-based development financing vehicle. 

The policy-based loan comes from ADB's ordinary capital resources. 
Meanwhile, ADB said the second phase will provide a second round of contingent disaster financing for Tonga, along with three new countries namely FSM, Marshall Islands, and Solomon Islands.

ADB Climate Change Specialist for the Pacific Ms. Hanna Uusimaa said based on the success of the program's first phase, the second phase will support policy actions in disaster risk management and provide a source of rapidly disbursing finance for timely disaster response and early recovery.

The policy actions supported under the program's second phase focus on strengthening policy, governance, and institutional arrangements for disaster risk management; improving investment planning processes and tools; and expanding disaster risk financing in participating countries. 

The program operates under the guidance of the region's own frameworks for resilient development and addresses risks pertaining to disaster events that would normally exhaust annual contingency budgets or emergency funds but may not be cost-effectively covered by insurance.

by Charley Piringi