What are the current and post 2015 humanitarian challenges and trends for the Pacific region? The paper provides an overview of the challenges facing Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs). Humanitarian action in the Pacific region is predominantly in response to natural disasters, but the region has also witnessed several conflicts over the past decade, and many underlying vulnerabilities and governance challenges remain. To address these challenges, this report calls for the Pacific region World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) consultation (June/July 2015) to come up with new ways of working, new partnerships, and innovative thinking.
While strong regional coordination structures exist, such as the Pacific Humanitarian Team, national-level coordination varies considerably. The majority of PICTs rank above ‘medium’ risk on the Index for Risk Management (INFORM) with most having a high dependency on aid. A ‘very high’ level of overall risk is identified in Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. A number of trends are identified:
- The impacts of natural disasters on area or population affected, houses destroyed and economic loss in the Pacific region are proportionally greater than those usually experienced elsewhere. Atoll islands, such as Kiribati, are expected to become uninhabitable by 2040 due to rising sea levels. By 2030–2040 low-lying area in the PICTs will be at an increased level of risk as a result of the interaction of global sea level rise with high water level events, such as cyclones.
- Climate change has the potential to have a ‘risk multiplier’ effect on conflict, putting stress on resources, the economy and land, with impacts most likely in smaller, lower-lying PICTs.
- Evidence shows that women and girls are disproportionately affected by diasasters and it is feared that they will be at greater risk as the frequency of migration and forced displacement increases.
- Migration is the leading driver of urban growth in the region and governments have already begun to move at-risk communities. For example, in Fiji.
- Many PICTs lack high-quality water and sanitation, health and education facilities, and malnutrition is also a concern. Development levels are lowest in western Melanesia.
- Urban growth rates have outpaced rural population growth everywhere in the Pacific region over the past 30 years. This has led to growing levels of unemployment, acute housing shortages, growing substance abuse and urban crime, and an increase in environmental pollution.
- While Samoa, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands receive large proportions of both climate funds and humanitarian assistance available within the region, Fiji has received a large amount of humanitarian funding but no climate and DDR funds.
Challenges to humanitarian response include: the logistics of aid reaching remote countries across a large geographic spread; the economic pressure of post-disaster recover, which can often overwhelm small island economies, and low-lying small island states which are particularly vulnerable to tropical cyclones and tsunamis.
