Pacific partners on gender, climate change and sustainable development

In response to the specific concern that few Pacific grassroots women-led groups were being seen as active leaders in climate change work, in 2014 DIVA started the loose but groundbreaking Regional Coalition ‘Pacific partners on gender, climate change and sustainable development’ (PPGCCSD). This brings together stakeholders from across the region working on these issues, who are supported to share their expertise and draw on the network for the benefit of their national climate change work. The relationships remain strong and enable those with greater institutional access to open paths for others to engage. Some examples of outcomes: The strong gender, human rights and climate change language in the S.A.M.O.A Pathway heavily used by Pacific States in all current development negotiations, are a reflection of that work in 2014-2015 of PPGCCSD, with PSIDS governments. There are right now thriving community-led projects in many maritime area communities. Today, the regional Coalition includes over 60 groups in 11 small island states (SIS) and is connected online and offline, leading to more informal and formal networked trust-based relationships between Government and CSO networks. In one example, DIVA co-convened a strategy meeting on Gender and Climate Change at the CSW with Government of the Marshall Islands, and it was attended by then President of RMI, Vice President of Kiribati, and the Plenipotentiary Ambassadors of Samoa and Tonga to the United Nations, among others. In another, the NZ Government convened a Triennial event with DIVA for Equality and others. In a third example, DIVA for Equality works with major regional gender and climate change initiatives. Such convenings and work build cross-sectoral work on gender and climate justice, over time, in intergenerational, intersectional and interlinked feminist ways.