At the invitation of the Government of Tonga, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pacific Centre provided an intensive three day training programme to Tonga’s government delegation to the upcoming Paris Council of the Parties meeting (COP 21).
This programme was well attended by not only senior officials from across the Tongan government, but by the Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Siaosi 'Ofakivahafolau Sovaleni, Minister for Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications.
Hon. Sovaleni—Deputy Prime Minister of Tonga, Paris, France
The workshop ran over three days, and provided technical briefings on key issues on the Paris agenda (including the latest climate science, climate finance, loss and damage, mitigation and adaptation) as well as skills training in the area of communications, textual drafting and actual negotiations.
Additional to the technical experts provided by SPREP and UNDP, funding was also provided through GIZ for this workshop. This workshop fits into a series of capacity building exercises which SPREP has carried out, with partners, to prepare member countries for the upcoming Paris negotiations (previous national workshops have been held in Fiji and Vanuatu, with a sub-regional workshop for the North Pacific held in the Federated States of Micronesia, and a High Level Support Mechanism ministerial event was more recently held in Samoa).
For additional information on this workshop and other negotiation training events coordinated by SPREP, please contact Diane McFadzien ([email protected]).