By Loretta B Manele

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and KOICA (Korean International Cooperation Agency) has partnered with Guadalcanal province for a US $7 million Climate Smart Social Services Programme.

William Atu, premier of Guadalcanal while speaking at the launching of the programme at King Solomon Hotel on February 4 said he is glad that the project is targeted towards vulnerable children in Ghaobata ward, North Guadalcanal.

He said they are at the launching to discuss the interventions to mitigate the threats and vulnerabilities that were identified.

Atu stressed that climate change has affected all faces of life and must be embraced as a development agenda.

“I am glad that in this project, children and gender are the primary target in the hard interventions while climate policies, climate finance, access to climate justice are some of the soft approaches.”

Atu expressed that climate change is here to stay and even if we were to reverse the greenhouse gas emissions back to zero in the next few years which will never happen, we will still have to live with the effects of climate change now and our future successive generations.

Moreover, he said he would like to conclude that at the end of this project which is 2027, it will achieve both hard and soft outcomes.

“The hard-smart outcomes interventions should not be too smart for the recipients to maintain its longevity and sustainability and resilience after the life of the project, while at the same time the soft interventions can be used as tool to guide other climate change interventions in other wards in Guadalcanal and sister provinces in Solomon Islands.”

He also took the opportunity to extend his gratitude to UNICEF and KOICA.

Atu said as the current Premier and leader of Guadalcanal province, he sincerely thanks UNICEF and KOICA for this partnership and in helping them to achieve their strategy in climate change and at the same time, addressing 7 of 17 SDGs which was stipulated in their policy.

He mentioned that his government has launched a policy since coming into office last year in May called Guadalcanal Government for Good Governance Policy Strategy (2024-2028) where they tried as much as possible to align their long-term goals with the GNUT (Government for National Unity and Transformation) policy, the NDS (National Development Strategy) and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Atu said in their Climate Change and Disaster Management Policy, one of the components is to work in partnership and collaboration with the Solomon Islands government and key development stakeholders in areas of climate change and disaster risk management.

He furthered that they look forward to working with UNICEF and KOICA in the duration of this project and beyond.

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