THE launch of the Pacific Guidance on Internal Planned Relocation (PAC-GIPR) marks a key step in addressing climate-driven community movements with dignity and respect for Pacific identities.
“This Guidance operationalises the vision set by our Leaders through the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility, endorsed at the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum in Rarotonga in 2023,” said Dr Raijeli Taga, the Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Trade in Fiji, during the PAC-GIPR formal launch in Nadi.
“It is designed to support governments in developing national standard operating procedures for internal planned relocation. It is flexible, adaptable, and grounded in Pacific realities. But above all, it is human-centred.
“The climate crisis is no longer a distant forecast. It is reshaping coastlines, disrupting livelihoods, and testing the foundations of our homes,’’ she said.
“For some communities in our region, the question is no longer if they must consider relocation, but how. And that is why the Pac-GIPR matters.’’
PAC GIPR highlights a human-centred and culturally grounded approach in which land is integral to Pacific identity, ancestry, and obligations, making relocation a deeply spiritual and ethical decision.
Taga said the planned relocation was not a development project, but a decision of profound spiritual and ethical gravity, and it must always be a measure of last resort- undertaken only when in-situ adaptation options had been exhausted.
“Relocation is not merely the shifting of buildings. It is the transplanting of worlds,’’ she said.
“We have learned from our region’s lived experiences – from communities in Fiji, in Tuvalu, in Papua New Guinea and beyond that, successful relocation requires more than engineering plans. It requires trust. It requires healing. It requires participation led by communities themselves.”
The guidance is built on seven pillars, including robust risk assessment, legal frameworks, community agency, and inclusive finance to cover cultural and non-economic losses.
The guidance was shaped through participatory regional processes and validated by partners such as IOM, SCAP, ILO, OHCHR, and the Human Mobility Technical Working Group.
It asserts Pacific ownership of the guidance, rejecting external blueprints, and calls for partnerships based on trust, transparency, and shared responsibility.
The document embodies Pacific knowledge and intellectual sovereignty, steering regional climate mobility efforts.
Taga stressed the importance of respecting Pacific leadership while inviting genuine dialogue on partnership.
“The launch of the Pac-GIPR affirms something powerful: we are not passive victims of climate change. We are sovereign architects of our response,’’ she said.
“We stand with those who may need to relocate so that they may do so with dignity. We stand with host communities, that they may receive their kin with grace. And we stand with those who remain, whose decision to stay is itself an act of resilience.”