IUCN MEMBER

Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Programme, Pacific Community

The Pacific Community (SPC) is the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, proudly supporting development since 1947. We are an international development organisation owned and governed by our 26 country and territory members.Our Pacific vision is for a region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, so that all Pacific people can lead free, healthy and productive lives. This is a shared vision for the Pacific under the Framework for Pacific Regionalism. Sustainable Pacific development through science, knowledge and innovation - Our unique organisation works across more than 25 sectors. We are renowned for our knowledge and innovation in such areas as fisheries science, public health surveillance, geoscience and conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Much of our focus is on major cross-cutting issues, such as climate change, disaster risk management, food security, gender equality, human rights, non-communicable diseases and youth employment. Using a multi-sector approach in responding to our members’ development priorities, we draw upon skills and capabilities from around the region and internationally, and support the empowerment of Pacific communities and sharing of expertise and skills between countries and territories. SPC founded in 1947 The South Pacific Commission, as SPC was formerly called, was founded in Australia in 1947 under the Canberra Agreement by the six ‘participating governments’ that then administered territories in the Pacific: Australia, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. They established the organisation to restore stability to a region that had experienced the turbulence of the Second World War, to assist in administering their dependent territories and to benefit the people of the Pacific.