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NGOs Boost Pacific Governments' Environment Capacity |
| Source: |
radioaustralia.net.au |
| Source Date: |
Friday, February 24, 2012 |
| Focus: |
Knowledge Management in Government
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| Created: |
Feb 27, 2012 |
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After several years, Pacific non-government organisations have finally started to make some headway in getting the region's big inter-governmental organisations to take them seriously and to involve them in regional policy-making.
SPREP - the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, is one organisation that has been ahead of the game on this.
Over the past five years it has developed strong partnerships with international NGOs.
SPREP's Director General, David Sheppard says these partnerships are making a significant difference to on-the-ground conservation.
Presenter: Jemima Garrett, Pacific Economic and Business reporter
Speaker: David Sheppard, Director general of SPREP
SHEPPARD: A lot of the NGOs, such as, for example, Conservation International, BirdLife International, WWFRCUN play an important role and they can access resources, expertise funding from outside of the region to apply in country projects in the Pacific. So we've been delighted to work with these NGO's, many of them we implement joint programs with and it's to the benefit of the region and conservation efforts.
GARRETT: These are very big and wealthy organisations and they have good connections with donors to. Is it paying off in terms of funding options for the Pacific?
SHEPPARD: I think it increases the range of funding options, so it's important that a number of these large NGOs are also linked with national NGOs, so Birdlife International has a policy of linking with NGOs in each country and fostering the development of that NGO, so that's another added benefit of some of these larger international NGOs.
GARRETT: So SPREP itself is, of course, an inter-governmental body. What sort of project are you working with these big international NGO's on across the Pacific?
SHEPPARD: Well, an example, I've just come from Nauru so there is one endemic species there, a bird species, the Nauruan Reid War Blood and we're involved in a joint project there with BirdLife International to map the distribution of this species and plot out conservation actions, very important on Nauru because of the mining issues. But that's one of many examples.
GARRETT: What impact are these big organisations having in terms of the scientific effort on the ground and the scientific brains trust that's available to the region?
SHEPPARD: It's broadening the brains trust and as I said it's both the expertise in the region, but also the expertise that can be drawn from outside the region. So IUCN has a network of specialist volunteers in areas like species, areas like protected areas that can be drawn on to help our efforts. So from SPREP's perspective, it's good news and the challenge is to harness it so that it's really helping the countries and meeting their needs.
GARRETT: Until recently, some of these organisations have had trouble finding enough Pacific Island scientists to work on some of these things. Are they actually including Pacific Island scientists well or how are they doing on that?
SHEPPARD: I think all of them place that as a priority and that certainly a priority of SPREP which is the development of local capacity, because that's fundamentally important in terms of implementing any environmental or development program. So I think the NGOs are addressing it, SPREP's addressing. It is an important matter.
GARRETT: There are so many environment issues coming in the future with climate change and on a whole raft of issues. Are universities in the Pacific putting out enough scientists to deal with these local Pacific Island scientists, to deal with all these issues?
SHEPPARD: Well, I think they are putting out a number of scientists, I think it would be good to see that increased at university's such as the University of the South Pacific play a key role, but I think there's always a need in the Pacific and globally for more specialists in the environmental area, and that's particularly apparent with the nature of the issues in the Pacific and the complexity of issues like climate change.
GARRETT: A lot of regional organisations like the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat are starting to work more closely with non-government organisations. What's SPREP doing to work with local Pacific Island-based non-government organisations?
SHEPPARD: Well, we're particularly working through a number of forums. So we convene jointly with IUCN, the Nature Conservation Round Table, which is a gathering of large international NGOs and also national NGOs. We hold every four years the Nature Conservation Congress which will be held next year. So this is really an opportunity to bring both the government, the NGO at the country and international level together to focus on issues. So we see a role that we have is convening, bringing together in the interests of harnessing the best level of expertise to help the countries.
GARRETT: NGOs working on the environment in the the Pacific often aren't called environment NGOs. They're often womens group or church groups. Are you able to involve the full gamete of NGOs in this sort of work?
SHEPPARD: I think we do involved them, I think we could involve them more within the Pacific region, probably more than any other region group such as the church groups, the womens group play very influential roles. So they've been very much involved in environment issues, such as the nuclear issues in the 70s and the 80s and very much involved in issues relating to climate as we speak at the moment.
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NGOs Boost Pacific Governments' Environment Capacity After several years Pacific non-government organisations have finally started to make some headway in getting the region's big inter-governmental organisations to take them seriously and to involve them in regional policy-making
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