A reflection piece by Steve Gawler
Pacific Urban Forum 7 was an amazing 3 days in amazing Port Moresby! (yes I’ve deliberately repeated amazing)
More than 300 delegates travelled across the Pacific to attend, including local and national government officials, international agencies and representatives from other parts of Papua New Guinea. It focused sharply on the threats and opportunities of urban settlements in the region in the face of rapid urban growth and extreme climate change impacts. ICLEI is proud to be a member of the Pacific Urban Partnership, a coalition of urban development organisations active in the region, which organised and conducted the Forum program.
Partnering with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF), ICLEI Oceania co-hosted a breakout session on Food Security and Climate Resilience in Kiribati, highlighting new techniques for village food production, which also provided income-earning opportunities for women leaders. ICLEI and CLGF also held a Mayors Multi-Level Governance roundtable at which mayors from 7 Pacific countries discussed some of their greatest urban resilience challenges with ministerial representatives.
Some of the takeaways from this session were:
- Pacific towns and cities are experiencing unprecedented population growth, due in part to migration from rural areas and outer islands. If the capacity of local towns can be re-built this will help to arrest the flow to larger centres.
- Governance systems are often complicated and confusing and may not provide an enabling environment for towns to take effective local action
- Many small island. councils have extremely limited financial resources and struggle to provide even the most basic services and infrastructure.
- External support from other levels of government and the private sector, coupled with peer-learning opportunities and partnering with international partners such as ICLEI, will greatly assist these councils.
Overall, the Pacific Urban Forum generated fresh momentum for building urban resilience in small islands and brought together the many regional partners and governments in a united effort. It also served as a first step towards the COP31 Pre-COP event to be held in Fiji in October.
ICLEI, as the focal point for local and sub-national governments at UNFCCC, is already planning a major Town Hall COP at this event.
A special thanks to Dr Alexei Trundle who worked tirelessly to coordinate and connect all the sessions, speakers and logistics, and huge thanks to the Governor of Port Moresby and his team and the Ministry of Housing for their generous hosting of the event. Port Moresby is a vibrant and exciting city, and the “Amazing Port Moresby” campaign is rapidly transforming the city into a role model for the Pacific. Looking forward to the next PUF!
