Pacific countries will access future COVID-19 vaccine through funding mechanism

Pacific island countries will be able to access a future COVID-19 vaccine through a new funding mechanism announced by Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, at the Global Vaccine Summit last week. Fiji, Kiribati, Federated States

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Fiji businesses say COVID-19 has increased violence

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased employees’ experiences of domestic and sexual violence say two-thirds of companies surveyed in Fiji by the IFC and Fiji Human Resources Institute. Fifteen companies were surveyed as

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COVID-19 a wake up call on the need for regional cooperation

Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations says the COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call for the Pacific on the need for regional cooperation. “If the world ever needed confirmation of why multilateralism

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Pathway across the Pacific

For only the third time in the last 20 years, the Pacific Islands Forum has invoked the Biketawa Declaration to respond to the global coronavirus pandemic. Forum member governments have agreed to establish a Pacific

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Surviving the tsunami: COVID-19 and Pacific economies

Papua New Guinea’s Treasurer, Ian Ling-Stuckey says his country has not had “an economic crisis of such complexity or magnitude since World War 2.” Samoa’s finance minister Sili Epa Tuioti calls it a “social

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Dodging the digital divide

It will be two long months before Fijian children are back at school; classrooms are scheduled to reopen on June 15 Like them, children in many other Pacific nations and territories are learning at home, or taking

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Region cooperating to get nationals home

Pacific Islands Forum members have heard nationals stranded in other member countries will be ‘treated fairly’  during their virtual meeting on a Pacific Humanitarian Pathway for COVID-19 this week. Tuvalu’s

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PIF countries to cooperate on medical assistance, flights and shipping

Pacific Island Forum Leaders will establish a Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on COVID-19 which could see the expediting of medical assistance and customs clearance of medical supplies, and facilitating of diplomatic

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A Humanitarian Corridor for the Pacific?

Reflecting the growing concern over the Coronavirus pandemic, the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum  and Tuvalu Prime Minister, Kausea Natano, invoked a few days ago the Biketawa Declaration, a security

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Pacific children take centre stage

“It’s within our culture and religion to  discipline our children physically, but sometimes we don’t know the line between discipline and abuse, so usually its confusing for us to find that line.” “Physical

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Gaining credits for Kyoto

The global coronavirus pandemic has pushed climate change off the front pages, but the challenge of responding to the climate emergency has not disappeared. Global emissions of greenhouse gases will likely

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‘CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS’ NEEDS ‘OUTSIDE THE BOX’ SOLUTION

For the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the disappointment of COP25 was that the conference attendees did not take its rallying cry for greater commitment: ‘climate change crisis’ – to heart. Recall the

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