Tokelau ENDRE has field day at SIDS
The Tokelau Ministry for Economic Development, Natural Resources & Environment had a field day at SIDS side events. Each of these meetings warrants its own separate item, but for now we offer the raw copy (still to be completed):
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1. "International cooperation on climate change data and information management" by Government of Vanuatu: Management of Climate Change data and information is important to assist decision makers, researchers and practitioners to pin all information required for climate change adaptation and resilience planning. Tokelau could benefit further from greater guidance on strategies that enhance the discovery, accessibility and use of this kind of information and data. The two most important outcomes of this meeting in relation to Tokelau’s position is our ability as a country to store, discover, access and use climate change information for our Government to undertake effective adaptation and resilience planning. Lastly, for Tokelau to utilize the Pacific Climate Change Portal by SPREP to enhance the accessibility of key data and information across multiple platforms and jurisdictions, this currently being discussed between SPREP & the Tokelau Govt of how to update and review from time to time.
2. "Coping with Natural Disasters: Building macro-fiscal resilience in SIDS" by International Monetary Fund: The panel discussions for this side event mainly focused around building in the resilience factor into Government financial systems and structures in preparation for before, during and after any Natural Disaster. This process will take time due to its complexity in terms of long term sustainability with the changes and effects on existing systems and structures and the different levels each country is positioned. Different phases for Disasters were also discussed such as recovery. The Recovery phase for any natural disaster faced by any country has proven to be the time when most aid and relief are provided to the affected country. Hence, the importance of stable systems and structures those are resilient to necessarily prolong and reserve relief for long term sustenance of country and communities. Tokelau can benefit from this session by relooking her Financial Systems in terms of preparedness for any natural occurrences and build in resilience into our structures. Identify all or any ‘Rainy Day’ funds and see how this can be utilized to maximize interest to generate and accumulate this funding. This is a similar arrangement to the Tokelau Trust Fund in which we currently have.
3. "Climate Change Building Resilience" by Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kiribati to the UN: This side event was made up of several statements and visual presentations from the leaders of Tuvalu, Tokelau, Marshall Islands, the Maldives, Cook Island and Kiribati. The most important impression from this forum is to continue the stand together as low lying atolls at the fore front affected by Climate Change to pursue the fight and journey against the biggest emitters of the world. Tokelau will benefit by increasing her allies for a stronger voice and working together with other SIDS countries to continue the fight against the effects of Climate Change. [See also our other story on this site]
4. "Documentary: Vital Harbours – Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC)" by Infrastructure Cook Islands, Government of the Cook Islands. The PACC Documentary was based on the Cook Island Demonstration Phase under the PACC Project, thematic area – Coastal Management coordinated by Paul Maoatea. It displayed the frustrations and the challenges faced by the people of Mangaia (another village in the outer Cooks) which only had access to supplies and materials through a boat travelling every 2 months the main island and Mangaia Island. In the process of re-building this harbour to make sure it is to a standard to withstand Mother Nature, a scientific calculator was developed with the assistance of NIWA. This scientific calculator helped to cut all the time consuming calculations and manual work by calculating how high, how deep, how thick, how strong any type of structure should be provided that maximum wind, wave, current and all other natural elements are put in. This assisted the engineers to determine how strong the harbour should be to endure the dangerous conditions especially with the location of the harbour. To relate, Tokelau has a similar situation that when the weather conditions are not favourable, we will have to use a different channel similar to Fakaofo & Nukunonu or to wait until weather clears up before any passengers or cargo can be discharged/ loaded. It would be interesting to find how we can utilize this scientific calculator given that Mangaia Island and Tokelau's situation are very similar in terms of challenges faced with our harbours.
5. "Future Energy for Small Island Developing States" by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan: One of the main objectives for this session was to identify and showcase policies, practices and experiences that could help increase Renewable Energy use for SIDS. This was achieved by the use of real examples and case studies to draw out discussion on policies, technologies and capacities. Tokelau will benefit as a leading country for Solar Renewable Energy is therefore encouraged to bring together stakeholders from across Small Island Development States to identify elements needed to transform and complete our Energy initiatives. Need to lead in terms of announcements for new partnerships to further deploy Renewable Energy across SIDS and to further progress and maintain the efforts done for our three villages.
6. "Enhanced resilience to climate change and sustainable management of resources using three dimensional model" by Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Samoa: Samoa shares experiences on climate change impacts to human and economic development in key sectors. Samoa has then formed a partnership with communities aimed at promoting the adoption of innovative information and communication technology tools to address challenges to increase the resilience to climate change by enhancing the integration of local knowledge in adaptation planning and implementation processes. The Participation 3 – D Dimensional Modelling (P3DM) process includes participation, resource mapping and spatial information to produce a standalone scaled relief model which has proved to be a user – friendly and relatively accurate research, planning and management tool. For Samoa, P3DM has been identified as a tool to unlock the potential of all stakeholders to adequately plan for a sustainable future.