Collaboration between Council of Regional Organisation in the Pacific and the United Nations

Opportunities for regional collaboration between the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) agencies and the UN system were the focus today as Executives from the CROP met with the United Nations Country Team in the Pacific. A key area discussed was the United Nations Pacific Strategy (UNPS) 2018-2022 currently being developed to guide UN support at national and regional levels in the Pacific. The talks updated CROP Executives on the progress of the UNPS development and highlighted opportunities for strengthened UN-CROP collaboration to deliver on the Pacific’s regional agenda. The UN system has completed five UN Pacific Strategy country consultations in Samoa, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu. The UN system worked jointly with the CROP Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG), through PIFS, to support national SDGs sensitisation in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in late July. Nine more country consultations will be completed by October 2016. Collaboration between the CROP and the UN is critical to aligning the UNPS priorities and regional accountability and reporting against, the Framework for Pacific Regionalism, the SDGs and SAMOA Pathway. The UN and CROP agencies have strong partnerships in sectors such as health, education, environment, gender and human rights, climate change, governance, effective development cooperation, as well as around Millennium Development Goals reporting, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) planning and monitoring. CROP and UN agencies have recently been working closely to develop a Pacific SDGs Roadmap through mechanisms such as the CROP Sustainable Development Working Group, the Pacific SDGs Taskforce and the Reference Group and therefore seeking CROP engagement in the process of developing the UN Pacific Strategy is another positive step towards ensuring continued strategic collaboration. -Ends-