An Overview
On his first visit to the Pacific in February 2010, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister, launched the UAE’s ‘Partnership in the Pacific Program’ which has been designed to facilitate meaningful cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and Pacific island nations on programs and initiatives within a mutually developed co-operative framework. To that end the UAE has created a new starting program of $50 million to be awarded to specific projects and partnerships in the Pacific in critical developmental areas such as education, social and healthcare services and infrastructure.
The motive behind UAE – Arab pacific partnership
The UAE shares the belief with its partners that the developing world must be fully engaged in the renewable energy revolution that lies ahead. The UAE has not only sought to play its part as a responsible global citizen, but to take the lead in tackling important issues that face the international community.
Like all developing nations the islands of the Pacific face a range of economic and development challenges. However, climate change and efforts to address its associated impacts represent perhaps the most pressing challenge to nations of the Pacific and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Like the UAE, rising sea-levels pose a critical concern. In addition the Pacific Island states currently depend almost entirely on oil and other fossil fuels for their energy needs. To address these problems, nations must partner in the efforts to both adapt to a low carbon world and in mitigating the impacts of climate change.
The “Partnership in the Pacific Program” is an outreach umbrella program initiated by the UAE to strengthen and increase co-operation with the island states of the Pacific in a number of key development areas. The “Partnership in the Pacific Program” aims to facilitate cooperation and to assist individual countries from the region in their own efforts to address social, economic and environmental as well as other developmental issues. In the area of climate change specifically, the program also seeks to establish a new model for country-to-country and country-to-region cooperation to address the domestic and cross-border impacts of one of the most truly global challenges the world has ever faced.
The key elements of the “Partnership in the Pacific Program”
- Financial Assistance
- Facilitating Dialogue
- Developing Research/Academic Partnerships
- Developing Tools in Partnership with the Region and Capacity Building Programs
The UAE is keen to discuss the potential for Pacific island nations to participate in the “Partnership in the Pacific Program” and welcomes suggestions for proposed projects and cooperative initiatives to be submitted to the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Major Happenings resulted from UAE – Arab pacific partnership
I. The UAE Inaugurates Three Micro Grid Solar Plants in Fiji
H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s minister of foreign affairs, today inaugurated a solar photovoltaic micro grid project that brings clean energy to some of Fiji’s outer islands. Constructed by Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, the clean energy project is the third financed by the United Arab Emirates’ US$50 million Pacific Partnership Fund, through the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD). The Fiji project was financed with US$5 million from the UAE-Pacific Partnership Fund.