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KATHMANDU, JANUARY 26
Climate change these days is the new development buzzword, and rising sea levels and drought incidences highlight the increasing urgency for action.
Yet for some reason, there is disconnect between the high level commitment to action and the carrying out of projects that effect change. The situation is dire when we come to consider the Pacific developing member countries of ADB, which struggle with these impacts daily.
Born and bred a Tongan national, I affirm that climate change is real for these small islands and its impacts pose significant threats to the Tongan way of life.
Responding to climate change is made more difficult for these small islands by their geographical isolation, socio-economic characteristics, and lack of technical capacity and knowledge, political instability and inadequate institutional arrangements to name a few.
For so long now these capacity and institutional factors have been the Achilles heel of development efforts in the Pacific and the main constraint to successive climate initiatives.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 27, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
