Pacific Sub Regional Centre

Pacific Sub Regional Centre officially launched

July 19,2006 was a historic moment of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Pacific when it officially launched its Pacific Sub Regional Centre in Suva, Fiji.The Pacific presence of the UNDP was significantly strengthened on this day with the opening of PSRC.

Mr. Garry Wiseman, the Coordinator of PSRC, indicated his great pride with the new UNDP- PSRC and continued to say that “PSRC will be major step forward for UNDP in the quality and depth of its advice on poverty, peace and stability, Governance and Human rights to Pacific Island Countries”.According to Mr Wiseman, the idea for a regional centre for the Pacific came out of UNDP’s global efforts to decentralize its policy advisory support and to strengthen its regional programming performance. “For the Pacific this means working alongside the three country offices in Samoa, Fiji and Papua New Guinea that have country-based projects in fifteen island countries from Palau to Niue. A key feature of our work in the Centre is to design assistance that is seen to be of priority for the Pacific and through working with a wide range of partners we seek to complement and enhance and not duplicate existing work. In this regard, we have a small group of eminent persons from the Region who are our Advisory Panel and help us to be practical and realistic,’’ he said.

Fiji's Former Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Kaliopate Tavola, who officially launched PSRC said the services provided by the Centre were of extremely importance to the fifteen Pacific Island countries. "Being a UN agency, Pacific Island country UN members and teh region have the greatest expectations that the centre will deliver the goods it is charged to deliver cost-effectively and efficiently," said Senator Tavola.

PSRC, which was set up with support from the Australian and the New Zealand Governments, represents a total investment of US $10 million over the next two years, with expectation that this will be sustained over the period 2008-2012. The Australian Government through AUSAID has given US $ 3m to PSRC’s work while the New Zealand Government has provided US $2m. This is in addition to the US $5m core funding provided by the UNDP.

PSRC focuses on three practice areas of UNDP: Achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Poverty Reduction, Crisis Prevention and Recovery and Democratic Governance under the cross-cutting theme of Human Rights and gender equality. The Centre has recruited 10 substantive experts from all over the world, combining Pacific and Global expertise into one multi disciplinary team available to Pacific island Governments for high level policy advice and support.

Jacqui Badcock, UNDP representative for Papua New Guinea said, “A key feature of the PSRC `s work is to design assistance that is of priority for the Pacific and work with a wide range of partners to complement and enhance the existing development efforts in the region.” The PSRC will provide UNDP support to the Pacific Plan and other regional strategies and in general will be available to support regional cooperation and integration.

The Chair of the PSRC Management Board Richard Dictus and UNDP Resident Representative for Fiji, described the establishment of the Centre as a “partnership for development”. “The PSRC is an important step in bringing global and regional perspectives together in Governance, Peace and Stability and MDG achievement,’’ said Mr Dictus. “It is MDG goal 8- partnership for development- in the Pacific context, ’’ he said.

The PSRC provides technical and policy advisory support to the three UNDP Country Offices in the Pacific including Samoa, Fiji and Papua New Guinea as well as manage and deliver a number of specific activities in its focus areas at the regional level. The initiative behind establishing such a Centre for the Pacific has come out of UNDP’s global efforts to decentralize its policy advisory support to strengthen its regional programming performance.