The Apia-based Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have renewed their partnership.

The partnership between the regional organisation and the United Nations agency was cemented with the signing of a renewal of a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the 15th COP [Conference of the Parties] to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada.

The new agreement builds on past collaboration forged through MOUs signed in 2005, 2012, and 2017 according to a media statement released by the SPREP on Saturday.

The new MOU allows the organisations to work to achieve shared goals and objectives with regard to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste, including biological diversity in support of environmental protection, climate change adaptation and mitigation and the sustainable development of Pacific communities.

SPREP Director General Sefanaia Nawadra said they are grateful on behalf of the organisation's Pacific Island members for the continued partnership. 

“We are extremely grateful on behalf of our Pacific members to be able to continue this most important partnership with UNEP," he said. 

“Next year SPREP will celebrate our 30^th anniversary but our history really started ten years before that as a programme of UNEP, as a coral reef monitoring programme. 

"The Noumea Convention came out of that and we are the Secretariat for the Noumea Convention. So in a way, we see ourselves as an extension of UNEP, and UNEP also sees us as an extension of yourselves, in terms of the work that we do and the relationships we share and value.

“Ultimately the partnerships SPREP pursues and forges are strategic with the goal being to ensure that at the end of the day, the Pacific people we exist to serve benefit as a result. The relationship with UNEP is one such partnership, of which we are very grateful.”

The UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said renewing the partnership with SPREP at COP15 has special significance.

“We know that the Pacific islands are obviously amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and you have the moral clarity to speak on this issue, beyond what anyone else has and that moral clarity is what we want to support because the work that you do is so critical,” Ms. Andersen said. 

“So we at UNEP have heard the voice of the Pacific islands communities, we stand with you and we remain deeply committed to supporting Pacific island countries through the UNEP and SPREP collaboration, whether it is capacity building, multilateral environmental agreements or whether it is on building international frameworks.”

Ms. Andersen added that it is a privilege for them at the UNEP to cement their long-standing partnership they have with SPREP. 

"We have no doubt that the work SPREP does in the Pacific region in terms of addressing all the environmental challenges is well recognised," she said. 

"We are glad to be working with an organisation that serves your Pacific member states, serves the environment and ultimately the people of the Pacific communities.”

The MOU will also contribute to the implementation of the UNEP Medium Term Strategy 2022 – 2025 and the Programme of Work 2022-2023-2025 as well as the Pacific United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2023-2027.