New Climate Resilience Tool for the Pacific Islands
Rhiannan Mundana is a climate specialist at Spatial Vision, a geospatial firm based in Melbourne, Australia.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of the Pacific Islands Development Program or the East-West Center.
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Leading Australian geospatial technology company Spatial Vision, and SkyEye Pacific, a technology company owned and operated by Pacific Islanders, have come together to develop a Mainstreaming, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MMEL) decision support tool, designed to assist Pacific Island nations to access climate change resources. The MMEL tool was created on behalf of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and can be accessed via the Pacific Climate Change Portal.
The open-source, online MMEL tool forms part of a wider initiative—the Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change and Resilience Building (PACRES) project, aimed at ensuring better regional and national adaptation and mitigation responses to climate change challenges facing the Pacific region.
The MMEL tool will assist people and organisations across the region to:
- Mainstream climate change strategies from local to country-level
- Support planners at national, subnational and community levels
- Improve the design, delivery and outcomes of climate adaptation initiatives
- Make a broad range of resources accessible and discoverable
- Unlock a more productive workforce by enabling efficiency and ease of locating climate resources.
Alongside their local Samoan partner SkyEye, Spatial Vision carried out region-wide stakeholder consultation to understand the requirements across Pacific Island countries as well as analysis of existing guidelines, manuals, and toolkits. The outcome is a user-friendly and intuitive tool that enables access to a collection of relevant content, tailored by user-selected prompts based on area of need. The unique benefit is that a user does not need to know exactly what resource they are trying to locate but instead, will be directed to resources that match their profile. The tool is designed for all users with very little to a lot of professional experience in MMEL practices.
The MMEL tool can be directly accessed at: https://mmel.pacificclimatechange.net/
Semi Qamese, project manager at SPREP says, “The MMEL decision support tool for mainstreaming climate change and disaster resilience can be applied across regional, national, sub national and community to better inform national sustainable developments, sector and community-based strategies, policies and legislative frameworks. This is crucial to ensure countries (at all levels) are equipped with the requisite policy and planning tools for enhancing their respective resilience building capacities and capabilities.”
“Spatial Vision is very pleased to have executed this project. It is very much aligned with both our previous experience and our interest in supporting the Pacific Region to address the pressing issue of climate change impact,” says Spatial Vision’s CEO, Cameron Selkrig.
SkyEye’s CEO, Sam Saili, says “This tool is a straightforward and accessible tool for use by an individual, organisation or business that wants to know more about climate change, how to mainstream climate change into proposals, strategies, and projects. We envision many businesses will use this tool to help with developing their environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) strategies.”
About Spatial Vision
Spatial Vision provides industry-leading end-to-end location-based services and IT solutions. Since its inception in 1999, Spatial Vision has been a leader in geospatial technology, serving many industry sectors including government, health, utilities, agriculture, emergency services, fisheries and more. Their purpose is to empower these organisations with the tools, technology and expertise needed to address economic, social and environmental challenges. They strive to support the work of our clients to unlock deeper, more meaningful insights for improved decision-making.
https://spatialvision.com.au/
About SkyEye
SkyEye Pacific is a company owned and run by Pacific Islanders looking at using technology and innovative ideas to solve some of the pressing issues we face as a community.
SkyEye provides three core services:
- Vehicle tracking: tailor made vehicle tracking services for the Pacific.
- Geospatial: geographical information systems and remote sensing UAV services.
- Samoa’s e-commerce platform.
They have offices in Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.