The Pacific Community and the International Organization for Migration have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to better coordinate support for Pacific countries responding to climate-driven disasters, displacement and human mobility.
The MoU was signed on 14 May to better coordinate how SPC and IOM support Pacific countries responding to climate-driven disasters, displacement and human mobility.
The release said Pacific island states are managing overlapping challenges from extreme weather, coastal erosion and growing mobility.
According to the release, at least 50,000 Pacific Islanders are being displaced every year by disasters and the impacts of climate change, citing the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
The Director-General of SPC, Dr Paula Vivili, and IOM’s Chief of Mission and Sub-Regional Coordinator for the Pacific, Mr Solomon Kantha, signed the MoU.
The agreement links SPC’s technical work with IOM’s mandate on climate change-related mobility, to jointly address human mobility, risk knowledge and capacity-building.
“Pacific leaders set out a clear direction in 2023 when they endorsed the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility,” Dr Vivili said.
“This signing gives us a practical basis to work with IOM on what that framework asks of us: rights-based, people-centred support for countries managing both the right to stay in place and the realities of displacement and migration.”
Dr Vivili said Pacific countries would benefit from more coordinated and integrated support on issues such as climate displacement.
“In practical terms, this should mean joint training, shared analysis, and programmes designed together rather than running in parallel,” he said.
Mr Kantha said closer alignment between regional and global actors was increasingly important as Pacific countries face overlapping pressures from climate-induced migration.
“Pacific mobility has always been adaptive, but climate change is changing both its scale and its urgency,” Mr Kantha said.
“This MoU brings together migration and displacement into the same regional response, rather than running it as a separate track, while also creating opportunities to align efforts on migration statistics for development, including the use of data to better inform migration-related policy, planning, and resource allocation.”
The release said the MoU is one of several SPC has signed with UN agencies and regional partners in recent years, as Pacific governments press for faster, more coordinated delivery from the partners that support them.
Pacific leaders endorsed the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility in 2023.
The release described it as the world’s first regional framework on climate change-driven movement, calling for increased investment to match greater adaptation needs and closer collaboration between governments and regional and international organisations on planned relocation, migration and displacement.