SPC Geoscience Division

Ms Kathryn Hawley, The Asia Foundation's Director - Pacific Program welcomes SOPAC staff to the grant and financial management workshop. Manila based TAF staff: Ms Maricel Dela Cruz and Ms Cynthia Ramirez are pictured with the workshop participants.

The Asia Foundation conducted Grant and Financial Management Training this month for SOPAC as part of the Foundation’s commitment to it’s partners. The two half-day session were conducted by the Director of Finance and Administration, Maricel Dela Cruz, assisted by Cynthia Ramirez, the Grants & Administrative Assistant, both from the Foundation’s Philippines office. Their visit was coordinated by TAF’s Director Pacific Program, Kathryn Hawley. The training provided those who attended a greater understanding of how the Foundation makes and manages grants in support of project activities. At the end of the sessions, the participants, from both the finance unit and the community risk program, have a stronger appreciation and clearer perspective on how to more effectively manage grants – substantively and financially.

Representatives of Member Countries, CROP colleagues (Forum Secretary General, SPC Director General, SPREP Deputy Director, Staff of SOPAC Staff of SPC, friends…..Let me first welcome you all to the SOPAC Secretariat this afternoon to witness this Signing Ceremony as part of the Regional Institutional Framework (RIF) reform process as a result of which we will action the transfer SOPAC functions into SPC and SPREP.

I would like to call on the Deputy Director General of SPC (Suva) Fekita Utoikamanu to bless this occasion with a short prayer.

I was invited to present a history of SOPAC to the delegates attending the STAR Meeting held in close association with the last SOPAC Meeting in Port Vila and ended with a quote from Shakespeare:

PRESS RELEASE

Regional Institutional Framework (RIF) Reform transfers SOPAC functions into SPC and SPREP

30 March 2010: Dr Jimmie Rodgers, Director-General of SPC, Mr David Sheppard, Director of SPREP and Dr Russell Howorth, Director, Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC),will at the SOPAC Secretariat at 3 pm on Wednesday, 31^st March 2010 sign three Letters of Agreement which together comprise full implementation of substantive elements of the Regional Institutional Framework (RIF) Reform agreed to by Pacific Island Leaders at recent Forum Meetings (Annex D of the 2009 Cairns Forum Communiqué refers).

The European Union and ACP Secretariat concluded a Contribution Agreement with SOPAC in May 2009 which will facilitate the mobilisation of funding and technical support under the ACP/EU Natural Disaster Facility of the 9th European Development Fund.