SPC Geoscience Division

‘In country training is just what we need’

‘Cost benefit analysis is essential to make sure we do not waste government and donors' money,’ said Mr Terieta Mwemwenikeaki, Deputy Secretary of Office of the President, at a national workshop today.

The workshop, which is being delivered by SPC, SPREP and GIZ, is intended to guide government officers in how to do and use cost benefit analysis (CBA) in projects affected by climate change.

‘The workshop was originally requested by Fisheries to help guide which projects they should support,’ observed Mr Mwemwenikeaki. ‘However, this tool is useful to provide an evidence base to make the most of all our policies and projects.’

Mrs Kurinati Robuti from the office of National Economic Planning Office (NEPO) said, ‘NEPO is supposed to carry out a detailed CBA where necessary but often this does not happen since we have limited know-how about to undertake this.  We are grateful for this initiative.’

Marita Manley, Technical Adviser, Climate Change (GIZ) said that staff attending the workshop have been very enthusiastic. ‘The Government of Kiribati already has a national project appraisal template with a section on describing the costs and benefits of projects but it faces constraints in applying it. During the training, participants have already been discussing how to apply cost benefit analysis as a framework to help improve decision making and the quality of projects.’

“Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing is one of the fastest developing technologies no matter whether you are a provider, and developer or a user. And here in the region and for the benefit of Pacific island countries and territories we are all striving to stay at the ‘cutting edge of the technology.’  In this regard the theme of this Conference focusing on mapping Pacific resources is very timely”, said Dr. Russell Howorth, Director, SOPAC Division of SPC, in the opening keynote at the Pacific GIS/RS User Conference held at Suva last week.

The growing impact of GIS and Remote Sensing was very much evident by the record number of attendees and presentations at the conference. Around 300 participants, from the around the Pacific Region convened for the three and half days of presentations, workshops and discussions.

Current and upcoming trends in the geospatial fields such as LiDAR (light detection and ranging) Imagery, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), recent progress in vegetation and land cover mapping, improvements in satellite technologies, imagery classification and open source software were heavily covered during the conference.

The conference has been held annually in Suva for the Pacific region since 1999, is free to attend and jointly organized by Secretariat of the Pacific Community, University of the South Pacific, various departments of the Fiji Government, with support from GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), satellite data and GIS software companies.