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An innovative Pacific regional meeting to be held from 9 to 13 June in Nadi, Fiji, aims to advance the region’s interests in global United Nations bodies in key areas such as gender equality and climate change.

The meeting will bring together representatives of national, regional and global women-led civil society organisations (CSOs) and networks, national women’s machineries (NWMs) and high-level state representatives from New York missions and capitals to discuss, strategise and agree on priorities and political partnerships to advance gender, climate change and disaster risk reduction positions in the global sustainable development, post-2015 development and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change multilateral agendas. The high-level meeting on 13 June will be chaired by the Honourable Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu.

This initiative is co-convened by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and Diverse Voices and Action for Equality and the Pacific Youth Council. Other partners include Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), UN Women Fiji Multi-Country Office, the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, The Women’s Major Group on Sustainable Development, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, the Global Fund for Women, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) and the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA), with many others providing expertise, and financial and other resources.

With the Pacific Plan review underway as well as global processes such as preparation for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States, Beijing+20 (the upcoming review of progress made in the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and discussions on the post-2015 development agenda, this is a timely opportunity to strengthen partnerships and engagement for implementation of regional and global priorities on gender, climate change and sustainable development, with the aim of demonstrating concrete policy results, and also increasing support for women-led civil society groups and national women’s machineries in the Pacific region.

The process adopted in the meeting aims to accomplish the following objectives. Firstly, to strategise and agree on urgent and long-term Pacific priorities and state and civil society partnerships to advance transformative gender, climate change and DRR positions into the global sustainable development agenda. Secondly, participants will also identify how CSOs and NWMs can support negotiators from Pacific missions and capital as they position Pacific priorities in global advocacy tracks. Thirdly, participants will discuss how to strengthen mechanisms to monitor implementation of policies, promote transparency, accountability and dialogue throughout the global gender, sustainable development and climate change agendas.