By Pita Ligaiula in Koror, Palau
Pacific communities will not fully benefit from growing climate finance unless governments, development agencies and project leaders are held accountable for how the money is spent, Transparency International Pacific Regional Engagement and Advocacy Lead Kelera Serelini-Varawa says.
Speaking at a Forum side event in Koror this week on integrity, disaster risk and climate resilience, Serelini-Varawa said the rapid growth in climate investment across the Pacific must be matched by stronger integrity and accountability systems.
“We cannot achieve effective climate action if there’s no climate integrity,” she said.
Serelini-Varawa said Transparency International had recently expanded its work in the Pacific climate and integrity space after identifying a need for stronger safeguards to ensure climate investments reach communities.
“We’ve noticed that there’s an increase in the investment for climate finance, investment in climate in general across the region,
“But we’ve noticed, from the engagement we’ve had, there are little integrity mechanisms in place to ensure that our communities actually benefit from this investment.” she said.
Serelini-Varawa said discussions on integrity and governance remained limited, despite regional frameworks recognising their importance.
She said stronger mechanisms were needed to ensure those managing climate projects were accountable to the communities they were meant to serve.
“We want to ensure that those that are leading the projects here in the region are being held to account, that the money that they are managing is for the people,” she said.
Serelini-Varawasaid transparency was critical so communities knew what projects were being implemented and how money was being used.
“They are reporting transparently, [and] the community are aware of what is happening on the ground,” Serelini-Varawa said.
She said discussions with development agencies had shown that these systems were often lacking.
“That is why we feel the need to really come to the Pacific and help ensure that the integrity mechanisms are set in place with global standards to ensure that our people are actually benefiting,” she said.
Serelini-Varawa said the integrity agenda was also closely linked to disaster risk reduction and climate resilience.
“When government is strong, then disaster planning is more effective,” she said.
She said stronger governance could help ensure early warning systems were trusted and public assistance reached affected communities when it was needed.
“Public support is more likely to reach the people at the right time,” she said.
Her message to governments, development partners and the private sector was that climate and disaster investments must deliver benefits directly to Pacific communities.
“We want to ensure that private finance and the investment that’s done here in the region actually reaches out to people and their voices are heard in the discussions that are being made on climate finance,” she said.
Serelini-Varawa said Transparency International was also working with other civil society organisations to strengthen community participation and accountability ahead of the COP process.
“We want to ensure there’s community participation.
“We want to ensure that other CSOs, not only us, are holding government to account,” she said.
She said Pacific governments and their delegations should make integrity a stronger part of international climate negotiations.
“We want them to really voice integrity as important, even to get their priorities heard in the diplomacy and the COP process,” she said.
Serelini-Varawa warned that international climate negotiations could be undermined by outside influence, including from fossil fuel interests.
“We can go out there and negotiate and negotiate, but if there’s influence, it’s really hard to get things across,” she said.
She said Pacific civil society would continue working with governments and communities to push integrity, accountability and public participation as central parts of climate action.
