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Asian Development Bank member fact sheet. ADB assistance to Samoa supports improvements in the delivery of basic social services, and provision of safer and more efficient road and maritime transportation, better internet connectivity, and effective disaster relief.

Economic growth and investment in infrastructure go hand in hand. A growing economy needs constantly improved infrastructure to ensure that the production and exchange of goods and services happens as smoothly and efficiently as possible

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at the heart of its implementation with its promise to “leave no one behind”.

A rapidly growing population, poor human development indicators, and climate change risk exposure demand a public investment policy that is effective so as to ensure the sustainable growth and development of the Solomon Islands

This handbook serves as a guide to the applications, technologies, business models, and regulations that should be considered when evaluating the feasibility of a battery energy storage system (BESS) project.

The Asia and Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unabated warming could significantly undo previous achievements of economic development and improvements of living standards. At the same time, the region has both the economic capacity and weight of influence to change the present fossil-fuel based development pathway and curb global emissions. This report sheds light on the regional implications of the latest projections of changes in climate conditions over Asia and the Pacific. The assessment concludes that, even under the Paris consensus scenario in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels, some of the land area, ecosystems, and socioeconomic sectors will be significantly affected by climate change impacts, to which policy makers and the investment community need to adapt to. However, under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, which will cause a global mean temperature rise of over 4°C by the end of this century, the possibilities for adaptation are drastically reduced. Among others, climate change impacts such as the deterioration of the Asian “water towers”, prolonged heat waves, coastal sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns could disrupt ecosystem services and lead to severe effects on livelihoods which in turn would affect human health, migration dynamics and the potential for conflicts. This assessment also underlines that, for many areas vital to the region’s economy, research on the effects of climate change is still lacking.

Training in best practice chemical management was identified as a key need for Pacific Island countries in their planning for implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. In addition, it was recommended that the training should be applicable to all types of chemicals, rather than just those covered under the Convention. The training component of the Pacific Persistent Organic Pollutants Release Reduction Project was developed in response to these needs. This involved the delivery of training courses within 14 Pacific Island countries with the overall aim of improving regional chemical management. The courses were developed and delivered by the Institute of Applied Science of the University of the South Pacific under a contract to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme. Funding for the work was provided by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme. The objectives, comments, and actions from the existing Sound Chemicals Management Policy (2011) remain relevant to Palau’s management of hazardous chemicals. Some are discussed again in the Action Plan from the Training Workshop but the full policy is included here for completeness. This appears in Appendix 4. Similarly, the 2007 Stockholm Convention National Implementation Plan for the management of pesticides, PCBs, and unintentional POPs contains some action points that remain relevant (Appendix 5). Additional ones for the new POPs will be relevant when the Stockholm Convention NIP is updated. As Palau continues with their refinement of the Draft Action Plan for Hazardous Chemicals developed during the Training, they will harmonize these two attachments.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defi nes biodiversity as “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.”

This section briefly reviews key global environmental trends and the evolving landscape of environmental finance. It also summarizes the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF’s) main capabilities and strengths that can be built on to position the GEF for 2020 and beyond.

This document is a step-by-step guide to facilitating a one-day workshop on understanding climate change science and is targeted at audiences in the Pacific island region and Timor-Leste. The training module provides PowerPoint presentations with facilitator notes and explains participatory exercises aimed at enhancing capacity in understanding climate change science.