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Resilient
Issue 1 November 2014 Bi-Monthly Newsletter
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Futures
SPC And UN Women Sign Memorandum Of Understanding
UN Women’s Nicolas Burniat and SPC’s Inoke Ratukalou
formalise the MoU
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)
and UNWomen commemorated International
Day of Rural Women with an event that show-
cased stories from rural women themselves and
culminated in the signing of a Memorandum of
Understand-ing (MoU). Through the MoU, UN
Women and the African, Caribbean and Pacific
Group of States (ACP) – European Union (ACP,
EU)-funded SPC implemented Building Safety
and Resilience in the Pacific Project (BSRP) will
work in collaboration to ensure the different
needs, capacities, constraints and social roles of
women and men are included in the design and
implementation of the BSRP project activities.
It is also aimed at strengthening the capacity of the 15 countries that the BSRP works in.
UNWomen’s Deputy Representative for the Fiji Multi-Country Office, Nicolas Burniat, signed the MoU on
behalf of UNWomen and highlighted the importance of including women and girls to ensure the sustainability
of climate change and disaster risk reduction strategies.
The BSRP project aims to reduce the vulnerability, as well as the social, economic and environmental costs, of
disasters caused by natural hazards in the Pacific. Inoke Ratukalou, Director of Lands Resources Division and
Officer in Charge at SPC, said the MoU will play a big part in ensuring gender mainstreaming across the
project’s activities. “By mainstreaming gender into our projects we can design activities and interventions that
are more sustainable and meaningful by addressing the needs and capacities of everyone. It is hoped that this
kind of partnership can be an example to us and the rest of the Pacific region of how mainstreaming gender can
be a critical and effective exercise that benefits all of us.”
The MoU signing was part of a wider event commemorating International Day of Rural Women that illustrated
the vital role Pacific women play in climate change, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development in gen-
eral. It was hosted by the BSRP project, UNWomen, GIZ, FemLINKPacific and Fiji’s Department for Women.
UN Women’s Nicolas Burniat and SPC’s Inoke Ratukalou formalise
the MoU